Living Dead
by Obsidian Productions
Summary: Corporal Jared West has just awoken from a short coma to a world plagued by undead hordes of inhuman monsters. As he struggles for survival, he hunts desperately for answers, survivors and just a few more bullets. Rewrite of Living Dead.
1. In Darkness Dreaming

–_**Living Dead–**_

A Novella by Obsidian Productions

**Chapter 01  
><strong>_-In Darkness Dreaming-_

The first thing that welcomed Corporal Jared West to the waking world was a horrible, wretched stench.

Jared tried to open his eyes, but found the effort cost him too much. Moving around was out of the question, too. So he merely laid there, his mind slow and sluggish, but further along than his body. He tried to marshal his thoughts. Through the mental muck that clung to his psyche, he asked himself the simple question of: Where am I?

He couldn't answer it, not at first. Instead, Jared focused on the things his senses were telling him. He could see nothing but utter blackness, the color of deep, starless space. He felt cold, and slowly realized that he was lying on his back against something hard and chilled. Gently, with incredible difficulty, he moved his fingertips. They moved across a cloth, laid over a hard surface. A sheet over metal.

He could hear something. A soft, regular beeping noise. And something else, a consistent dripping. Jared tried to swallow, found his mouth dry. Worst of all, he decided, and most prominent of his senses, was that smell. It reeked. He tried to place it as his mind and body came back online from whatever mysterious event had rendered it so depleted. The closest he could come was that of rotting meat.

Jared tried opening his eyes again. This time, he had regained enough of his lost strength that he managed the simple task. He was greeted by a dull gray ceiling overhead. It was vaguely familiar. Jared still couldn't remember why he was here, wherever here was. All he knew was that he was weak and tired.

Somewhere in the room he was in, something shifted. He heard a soft rasp of breath. Jared tried to call out, but nothing more than a muted, awkward croak escaped his throat. He grew frustrated and tried to will more strength to his muscles. His fingers twitched and his foot shifted slightly. He took a shallow breath, trying to deepen it, and relaxed. Time would grant him strength, but who was in the room with him?

Jared briefly retreated into his own mind, dredging through the memories. He began to remember things. He remembered himself, a Corporal of the United Nations Marine Corp. And a shit job duty 'defending' the UNSC's assets on some distant planet called Xerxes. He remembered boredom measured in months. He remembered-

Something moved again, this time with more clarity. This time, closer. The breathing was coming more consistently now, harsh and ragged. Jared tried again, desperate for contact. The smell was setting off all kinds of internal warning alarms. His combat instincts were flaring up, demanding attention.

"Who's there?" he managed, his voice an awful croak.

There was a quiet sound, something like a growl, and more shuffling feet. Jared realized, with something like terror, that the scent was getting worse. Whoever, or _what_ever was in the room with him was now coming closer. Jared tried to move. He could feel his limbs responding sluggishly, shifting slightly beneath a blanket. The noises, shuffling footsteps, were closer than ever. Just as Jared was beginning to be able to lift his hands, something came into his peripheral. He shifted his head to the side, and froze.

Terror, shot through with raw, panic-laced adrenaline, flooded his system. What stood before him, advancing slowly on him, had once been a human being. Now, it was something much different. The flesh had turned sallow and pallid, the veins blackening and pressing tightly against the skin, as if trying to burst out. The teeth had grown, ruining the gums, turning into sharp things. There were too many of them.

But it was the eyes, the eyes that so captivated Jared. He felt as if he were asphyxiating, captured by those twin obsidian pools that seemed to adsorb light instead of reflect it. The creature let out another low groan, louder this time, and reached for him. The terror granted Jared's system a much needed kick-start.

He rolled off the thing he was on, away from the inhuman beast, feeling something rip painfully from his arm and crashed to what he quickly recognized as the infirmary floor. He hit something on the way down. There was a sharp, metal _clang_, followed by many others as several instruments fell to the floor. Above him, the thing bumped into the examination table he'd been lying on.

Jared groped blindly in the dim gray light, his eyes fixated on the face of the thing that had reappeared, bending over the table, reaching for him. His own eyes were wide and wild with pure fear. His fingers found something, closed around a circular metal handle. Unable to look down at whatever object he had grabbed, Jared brought it up before his own eyes.

A scalpel.

Something gave and the trance of fear that so paralyzed him snapped and shattered, falling away like a wet cloak. With a quick, fluid motion, he jabbed upwards, driving the tip of the scalpel into the thing's blackened eye. The creature let out a large roar of pain, twitching. Jared palmed it hard, forcing it another few inches in.

The thing slumped forward onto the table, sliding down slowly. Blood spilled out everywhere, black like oil, thick like tar. Jared's breath came raggedly, but his heart eventually began to slow down. He stared up at the now dead face, which still looked more intimidating than hell, and tried to get his mind out of lockdown.

It was difficult, but not impossible. Jared finally, shakily, rose to his feet. He backed into a wall and jerked with fright, still staring at the corpse he'd made. Nothing else moved in the infirmary. He might have been terrified, but his instincts were still fighting to keep him alive. He began looking around for another weapon, preparing for another attack.

His eyes locked onto another medical instrument, something not unlike a butcher's knife. He knelt quickly and scooped it up. The blade was flecked with black blood. It gleamed dully beneath the nearly-dead lights of the infirmary. Jared scanned the room, managing to take his eyes off the...whatever it was.

The place had seen better days.

One of the windows had been broken out, shards ringing the frame, coated in a dark fluid. From outside, rainwater spilled in. Distantly, Jared could hear thunder. A couple of the examination tables were still occupied with unmoving forms. Medical instruments and supplies were scattered across the ground. Blood, some of it red, some of it black, sat in pools on the floor. It also occupied the walls in dried sprays.

Jared felt his control coming back. His head began to ache, a low, pounding sensation laced with pain. He winced and reached up, touching his scalp. It was tender, and hurt when he did so. It also unlocked a memory: working in the garage, shifting crates...someone shouting a warning, and then something heavy and solid crashing down onto him.

And then nothing, until now.

Jared felt the need to move, but parts of him were still sluggish with lethargy. He felt utterly drained. The situation before him was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. He'd need a clearer head to figure it out and survive.

Where was everyone?

Jared remembered his outpost. He'd been assigned to a little communications relay station tucked into the end of a valley. There'd been a dozen of them, mostly technicians, dedicated to making sure the thing didn't break down. A terrible job if you're a soldier. An even more terrible job if you were a soldier that had an itch for activity.

Something banged against the exterior of the infirmary. Jared licked his lips in tense dread. He hurried to the far door, the only way in, and secured it. The pad gave an affirmative chime and a red light pulsed gently. Jared let out a small sigh of relief, then eyed the broken window. It was higher up, and small. It would take effort to crawl in, and these things, whatever they were, didn't seem capable of subtly.

Jared decided that he needed answers. He hurried over to the sole computer terminal in the room and sat down in a lightly padded swivel chair. He quickly brought the thing to life, overjoyed that it had survived the event. He brought up the most recent documents, surprised to find that the date had advanced five days since when he'd 'gone to sleep'. He found a few reports pertaining to himself, that he had slipped into a coma.

That explained the thing that had been torn from his arm: an IV. They were keeping him hydrated. He read more reports, finding something about a lack of communications from the other outposts in the area. And then, something even more disturbing: someone came wandering in from the outside.

He'd been in a deranged state, the report said, and attacked the base personnel on site. This was three days ago. After biting two of the men, Thompson and Parks, two of the men he actually got along with, they had to put the guy down. But it took six shots, five in the torso, one finally in the head, before he _went_ down.

Jared swallowed nervously, his throat still dry, making the effort painful. He read on, not at all liking where this was going. That night, the two men bitten passed out. They were rushed to the infirmary. They woke up at some point during the night and, in a disturbingly similar manner to the other man, attacked the others. This time three other members were bitten. One committed suicide. The other two were placed in quarantine.

Things became confused after that. All Jared got out of the final report was that someone had sabotaged communications and more of the monsters were showing up. Sitting back, Jared heaved a weary sigh. He started thinking about what to do when a sudden wave of lethargy hit him so hard he nearly passed out.

Coming out of a five day coma was nothing to be ignored. Jared needed stimulants, and he knew it. He hunted through the infirmary, coming up with an injection and sticking himself. He felt the stimulants go to work almost immediately, his vision and his head both clearing up. He felt a lot more alert and concise.

A plan began to formulate in his mind. First, he needed to search the outpost, see if anyone was still alive. The reports hadn't led to any solid conclusions on what was causing the infection, Doc Pomroy hadn't had enough time to properly investigate. Jared couldn't imagine him doing so anyway. Doctor Pomroy was old and, as he said on several occasions, looked at his posting to the outpost as an early retirement.

But there were conclusions to be drawn. Speculation. And even Pomroy had been going down the same path that Jared was currently going down. However it had been achieved, by flaw or by design, the residents of Xerxes were now facing down a horde of undead monsters that could pass along their sickness with the greatest of ease.

They were facing zombies.

Jared shuddered at the thought. He was no stranger to fiction. When he wasn't working out or wasting rounds on target practice, Jared read. He'd come across the idea of stumbling, drooling undead in a few novels. From the clues he'd gathered so far, these ugly things were a dead on match for a traditional zombie.

Jared knew he needed to act fast. He was nothing if not a survivor. He didn't get to be a Corporal and survive three years to see the end of the Human-Covenant War for nothing. Working quickly, Jared gathered up some medical supplies. It became immediately obvious that someone had come in and cleared out most of the supplies. He managed to get a single, full kit together. Heading over to the door, Jared unlocked it and left.

It was on the far end of the day outside. Rain slicked everything and the skies were overcast, a uniform iron gray. The infirmary had been tucked in the back corner of the base. The few other structures lay spread out before him: dorms, the messhall, the generator room and the relay itself. Jared hurried forward, towards the relay. That's where what was laughingly referred to as the armory would be hidden, within the security center.

Jared saw no other zombies about in the misty twilight. That didn't mean they weren't there. Jared didn't relax his grip on the medical instrument. He hit the access button and slowly made his way into the relay building. It was dark and quiet. Most of the lights had failed. What few that were left flickered.

Jared checked the radio room, just to be sure that it really was useless, and found it to be dishearteningly true: the place was a wreck. The equipment bled sparks periodically, and most of it looked completely dead and trashed. With a sigh, Jared turned away from the radio room and hurried down the corridor to the security center.

It, too, had been shot to hell. Bullet holes marred the far wall, which was a bank of monitors. They were all dead or showing static. Jared ignored them, instead making for the pair of weapons lockers across the room. The first was open and obviously empty. He popped the second one open and found it in a similar state.

No weapons. Jared swallowed nervously. No weapons and there were probably zombies about. Nervously, he glanced over his shoulder. The room remained empty. Outside, thunder rumbled. The storm was building. Hope was not yet lost. Jared left the relay, hurrying towards the dorms. The weapons lockers might have been cleared out, but he kept his own piece in his dorm. No one else knew about it.

Jared didn't like to think himself paranoid...more like well-prepared. He stepped into the dormitory building, sweeping his gaze across the central corridor. Nothing there but a single body, the head mostly torn away in a spray of blood and gore on the wall. Jared hesitated by the corpse, kneeling by it.

Live with a group of people for long enough, and even an anti-social like Jared West would get to know them. Maybe even like them. He'd liked these people. Ralsen was one of the technicians who maintained the vast array of equipment in the relay. He was a bit on the skinny side, young, had never seen the war. Despite their differences, Jared had taken a liking to him. Almost started seeing him like a little brother, even took him to his impromptu shooting range when the kid asked if Jared could show him how to handle a piece a little bit better.

And now he was just another corpse. Jared had seen too many of them. It looked like now he was going to see a lot more. Jared stood up from the body and pushed into his bedroom. It was exactly how he'd left it: neat, orderly, untouched. He hurried over to the bed, groped for the M6G stashed underneath the mattress.

It was still there, fully loaded, safety on. Two magazines to spare, even. Jared grinned. He stared at the meat cleaver of a medical tool. He hated to abandon it, but didn't want to keep it on him either. It wasn't exactly a combat knife that could easily be concealed. It was bulky and unwieldy, and he might end up hurting himself.

He dropped it and secured the pair of magazines in his pocket, pulled the one in the pistol out and checked it, then slid it back in and disengaged the safety. Jared hurried back outside. He kept his eyes open, _something_ had banged against the exterior of the infirmary not too long ago, but he found the place still vacant. He hurried over to the garage and glanced inside. His hopes fell. No vehicles left. He'd have to do this the hard way.

Jared decided to do a quick search of the outpost anyway, for extra supplies or other survivors. He moved with swift precision through the buildings, hunting in every nook and cranny for anyone else. Amongst the dead he found half the staff, as well as a collection of people he didn't recognize. He expended three rounds taking down a trio of zombies haunting the messhall and searched for food or water after securing the area.

No food, but the plumbing still worked. Quickly, he filled a canteen and drank deeply, nearly emptying it. He refilled it again, secured the cap and slipped the strap over his neck. Feeling a little bit better, Jared finished his reconnaissance of the outpost and came up empty: no more guns, no more ammo, no more people.

Just the aftermath: a litany of death and decay. Jared left the outpost then, making for the front entrance. There was nothing more for him here. He knew of another complex, a larger, more important communications facility, only two miles north. It was one of many radio-oriented facilities in the region. While he had lived at his outpost for a few months, it had never really been his home. More of a place to simply exist. To pass the time.

With minimal regret, Jared set off down the valley, away from the outpost.

Up ahead, things lurked, and he could hear distant growling.


	2. Cold Decay

**Chapter 02  
><strong>_-Cold Decay-_

Survival, Jared decided, took up residency at the top of his list of things to do. It had its own list of necessities, like ammo, a bigger arsenal and other survivors, preferably. Other people might not be necessary, but he could stand having someone to talk to.

The valley was darkening and saturated in rainwater and gloom. So far, Jared he encountered a handful of zombies. What had once been functional human beings. He put them down fast, leaving them face-down in the mud, as he made his way up the valley. There were a network of the earthen trenches in the area, cut through with copses and rivers. More than once Jared had marveled at the natural beauty of the place.

Now, everything seemed threatening. Every collection of trees a dark nest of shadows that could hold anything, every river a potential wet housing for a zombie. On some level, Jared was surprised at how quickly he had adapted to the idea of reanimated corpses. But really, he'd been fighting for his life for three years now, and the ability to adapt was something he'd picked up long ago. Jared like to think he kept an open mind.

The primary communications facility loomed ahead, at the opposite end of the valley. Jared stared at it, contemplating its collapse. It suddenly occurred to him, as he drew within twenty meters of the exterior fence, that whatever had happened might not have reached this facility. He almost immediately rejected the theory, however, as he remembered not only the immediate vicinity of the outpost to his, but also the lack of proper lighting or normal sounds of an outpost. Not to mention the distant, unsettling groans of zombies.

He gripped his pistol more firmly and kept going, trying to keep himself loosened up and ready for anything. Jared liked to think that he really _was_ ready for anything. He'd survived the zombie invasion through a goddamned coma while everyone else was either dead or gone. And while everyone else had seemingly grown complacent in their outpost life, Jared kept himself in shape. He practiced at a shooting range that he, himself, had built. He worked out, ran PT and generally tried to keep his mind and body ready for action.

It looked as if all his preparation had been worth something. But he always knew it would be. The galaxy was nothing if not a giant tinderbox, and someone always had to light a goddamned match. Jared reached the perimeter fencing, staring through the chainlink to the base beyond. This base was larger, but almost everything was contained within a central building, built around a powerful piece of communications equipment.

His base was nothing more than a booster for this one, amplifying the signal. There had to be at least three times as many people here. Jared mentally ran over what he knew about the complex. He'd visited it a few times, mostly on social visits since the two bases had become friendly and there _was_ a female technician he had grown fond of in the beginning. While his visits had become more frequent during the first month, he'd ultimately discovered that she was interested in nothing more than a bit of sex.

Once she'd gotten it from him, she no longer wanted to see him.

Jared made for the entrance, which was still open, unsecured. He'd have to do a full sweep of the area, he was still low on supplies. There was a cluster of supply shacks next to a single landing pad. As far as Jared could remember, they were the only buildings separate from the central structure. He made for them, hoping to find something useful.

A couple of zombies lingered on the landing pad, not having noticed him yet. He raised the pistol, squeezed the trigger and watched their brains fly out in a visceral spray. Two corpses crashed coldly to the ground. Jared wished it had been this easy with the Covenant. Then Humanity wouldn't be in such a shit position right now.

He came to the shacks, totaling six in all. Jared moved through each in rapid succession. They were simple, one-room, one-story structures, packed tightly with metal crates. None contained weapons, ammo or anything even remotely useful to his current situation. None contained anything living, either.

Vaguely disappointed, Jared made for the central structure. It loomed above him, laden with foreboding. Most of the exterior lights were out. Some flickered. Jared came to the main entrance and hit the access button. The door slid open, revealing a corridor occupied by a single zombie. He automatically raised his pistol and fired, watching the bullet flash straight through the thing's skull and splatter its brains and blood across the wall beside it. The fresh corpse slumped to the ground, becoming just one more unmoving mass.

Jared made his way down the corridor, taking it nice and slow. He found himself in an entryway, a crossroads of corridors that led to the different sections of the base. Living Quarters, communications, power, storage and command. He frowned and considered his options. Power and storage were both below ground, somewhere he didn't really feel like going. But what if there were people down there?

As Jared stood there, considering his options, something else occurred to him. It was getting late, pushing into the dark now. And he had no idea where to go. All of a sudden, the idea of using the complex as a rest stop seemed extremely appealing. Zombies weren't that smart, and Jared was a light sleeper by nature. He could easily envision himself locking up and taking refuge in a bedroom and sleeping through the night.

But, first thing was first, he had to secure the facility.

Jared began by locking down the main entrance. He located a general access console in the lobby and booted it up, then hunted through the system until he found a schematics of the base. He still vaguely remembered his way around, but it would be nice to have solid details. There were only two more ways in: one side entrance in the living quarters and a rear entrance at the back of communications. Jared was relieved. It would be relatively simple.

Well, depending on how many zombies were inside the base. Jared considered the situation a few moments longer, memorizing the map and planning his route. He could make a slow circuit of the first story. The second story was smaller and there was only one way up there. Jared decided it would be a good idea to lock the base down, then work his way down from the top. He considered reloading his pistol, but knew every bullet would count. Besides, he could more than likely reload faster than they could come at him.

He made his way into the dorms wing, moving through a short corridor that led into the messhall. It was mostly abandoned, just a lonely corpse spread out on top of a table for company. Some utensils had been thrown across the ground, a plate dropped, a cup of coffee spilled. Jared quickly checked the kitchen and the small storage room in the back, finding them both empty but still full, mostly, of food. He made a note to come back here later.

The infirmary was in bloodier shape, and half a dozen dead bodies occupied it. The blood smelled awful. Some of it was thick and black. Jared made double sure all the corpses were really corpses, then moved on to the rec room. He found a pair of zombies there, standing on either side of a pool table and looking at it like it ought to mean something to them. He put them both out of their misery, and his, and reloaded with his last magazine.

Eight bullets was all that stood between him and oblivion.

Jared made a note to visit the armory. He moved on to the final portion of the area, investigating each of the squalid living quarters. They were square, simple things, little bigger than the one that Jared had grown used to living in. He imagined that the personnel here had, like him, enjoyed having such a small room on the sheer basis that they didn't have to share it. Jared searched each of them, and the small bathrooms attached, only finding two more undead fiends and putting bullets through both of their skulls.

He secured the side entrance after poking his head out and seeing if anyone else was lingering outside. Jared moved through the silent, dead base towards command. He hesitated, briefly, in passing the door to comms, when he heard a low growl come from behind the door. He stared at his pistol, then at the door, then moved on to command.

Command was dim and dead. It was small, little more than an extended security center with another bank of close-circuit monitors, most of which were dark or static-laced. The ones that were still alive showed Jared a minimum of another three zombies in the complex. He moved across the room towards the trio of weapons lockers. The first stood ajar, depressingly empty. Jared managed to pry open the others and found them almost equally void.

There were no more guns, but he discovered and policed up another trio of magazines for his pistol. He felt better about his predicament, but not by much. Jared hurried to the communications center, moving down a central corridor and leaving the other doors closed for the moment. He secured the final entrance, then made his way up a narrow stairwell to the top floor, which mostly housed the communications equipment. He made his way through the cramped, squalid rooms, taking it nice and easy.

The second floor turned out to be, thankfully, void. It was obvious that someone had tried to do a bit of damage though. Sparks shot out of the larger pieces of equipment and it was obvious someone had fired a fair amount of bullets around. Sighing quietly, Jared hoped against hope as he descended back down.

He worked quickly but thoroughly, eliminating a few zombies lingering in the communications center. He stared briefly at the main radio, finding it mostly undamaged, and continued his hope, then pressed on deeper into the facility.

The basement contained storage and power, both mostly empty. Jared cleared them out, found no survivors, no supplies, then locked the lower level down. After that, he moved back to the radio room and got to work.

Jared might be a soldier at heart, but he'd had a bit of technical training. At least enough to work a radio. He spent several moments scanning the spectrum, hunting for survivors out there. It took a few minutes, but he finally got his signal out.

_"__Who's this? Say again?"_ Jared boosted the signal.

"I said, this is Corporal Jared West with the UNSC. Who is this?"

_"__Sergeant Miller. Where are you radioing from, Corporal?"_

"Comms Relay Center 17-B."

_"__Comms Relay...ah, I think I know what you mean. Listen, Corporal, we're not too far apart. The valley your in links to another, Valhalla, where we've got a pair of deep space listening posts and radar centers, one at each end of the valley. At the far end, there's a system of caves with an elevator in them. Take that up to the top, continue north for about a klik and you'll find us. Me and my team have holed up on top of a Marine training complex, The Pit. Get here and we can link up."_

"Alright. I was thinking of spending the night here."

_"__Good idea, that. It's dangerous out during the day...but a lot worse at night."_ The signal began to fade. Jared sighed and boosted the signal, but it did little to cut through the static.

"Sergeant Miller, can you tell me what happened here?"

_"__You mean you...ztt...'t know?"_

"No, I was in a coma."

_"__-ounds like you're...zzt...aking up...zzt...ontact me in the morning."_

"Sergeant Miller?" There was a soft chatter of static, then nothing. Jared sighed and abandoned the effort. Miller was right, they could talk in the morning. He checked his watch and found it to be pushing eleven PM. Sunrise would be at seven.

Jared left the comms center, deciding to double check the ground floor one more time. He found all the doors locked, the windows undisturbed, and locked down every interior door. He picked up an MRE and refilled his canteen, then grabbed some cans of soda and made for one of the bedrooms. Locking himself in and putting the dresser in front of the single window, Jared set his pistol and ammo out on the bedside table.

He ate the MRE, downed the cans of soda and reflected on the whole thing. Where could zombies have come from? Especially on a middle of nowhere planet like Xerxes. By the time he finished his meal, Jared could feel lethargy hitting him in waves. The stimulants had worn off, and nothing would replenish his body like a good night's rest.

He set an alarm for eight AM, then laid down and, making sure the pistol was close at hand and the door was locked, went to sleep.


	3. Death Valley

**Chapter 03  
><strong>_-Death Valley-_

The alarm tore Jared from his sleep the next morning. He jerked awake, the pistol in his hand in an instant, pointing into the darkened room. He found himself alone and relaxed slightly, lowering the pistol. He took a deep breath and let it out. Gray light was filtering in from around the dresser he had shoved against the window.

Jared laid back down for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. He felt better, more alert. But he wasn't ready to face the day, not yet. He pulled the blankets aside and rose to his feet, making for the dresser. It provided him with what he was looking for: a fresh uniform. As luck would have it, the man who'd occupied this room had also been a Marine and, given the one-size-fits-all nature of the uniforms, Jared could easily fit into this one.

He collected the uniform and a fresh pair of boots, then made for the tiny bathroom. He started up the shower and shed his rumpled, dirty uniform. As Jared stepped into the steaming stream of water, he regretted Command's decision to leave the Marines living the outpost life without armor. There was some kind of logic at work there, probably more bureaucratic than military, but the end result was the same: he'd have to make due with just a uniform.

Jared cleansed himself, wasting more time than he should have in the shower. Even if he'd been unconscious for those five days, his body was still aware, and it missed the base pleasure a hot shower could bring. Especially after being in the field and fighting unclean things. Jared washed up, shaved his face and skull, preferring to keep his hair at stubble length, and killed the shower. Stepping out, he grabbed a towel and quickly dried.

Jared eliminated his morning breath with a quick rinse of mouthwash, opting out of using another man's toothbrush for reasons he wasn't entirely sure of. His morning rituals complete, Jared stepped out of the bathroom in a fog of steam and quickly dressed. He felt a hell of a lot better, refreshed and revitalized, as he found a holster for the pistol and strapped it to his belt. He pocketed the ammo, holstered the pistol and left the room.

The day was young, and Jared planned on making the most of it. He wanted to get to the training complex, what had Miller called it? The Pit. Having other people to talk to, and learning more about the nature of this epidemic, was appealing. But getting there might be a problem. Jared hunted through the dormitories until he found a military-issue duffel bag, then filled it with canteens and MREs from the messhall.

He located a few spare power cells down in storage, as well as some small, handheld radios, and stuffed all the supplies into the duffel bag. Jared then made a final stop in the comms room, attempting to strike up another conversation with Miller. Five unsuccessful minutes later, Jared frowned at the unresponsive radio and decided it must've given up the ghost. That, or Miller was just asleep. Or something else.

Jared made his way to the rear entrance and unlocked it. He stepped out cautiously, but found that no zombies had gathered to congregate there during the night. For which he was very grateful. Jared still only had the three magazines to spare. He knew the valley that Miller had been talking about, Valhalla, as he had familiarized himself with the region during his stay on the grounds that he might need to make a run for it.

Jared took one last look around before making his way away from the communications complex. The way ahead narrowed and as he crested a ridge, he could see down into the next area: Valhalla. About a dozen meters ahead was the first of the two listening posts. It was a single structure built around a large satellite dish pointed towards the heavens. Across the way, at the far end of the valley, he could make out another just like it.

Well, he might as well search them both for survivors. Jared noted that the rain had let up as he descended into the valley, making for the first listening post. While he did enjoy the rain, he didn't enjoy having to walk around in it. It muffled footsteps too easily and made everything unpleasant and difficult to see.

Jared made his approach to the first listening post. As he went for the entryway, he noted a red symbol painted next to the door. He stared at it for a moment, attempting to discern its nature, but eventually shrugged the matter off and entered the base. Jared kept his pistol out and ready, prepared for more zombies.

As Jared made his way through the outpost, which was even smaller than his own relay station and housed seemingly only half a dozen personnel, he noted the feel of abrupt abandonment here. The Zombie infestation hadn't seemed to touch the listening post, mainly because it appeared everyone here had ran away before it could.

He found nothing but lonely corridors, empty rooms and slightly disturbed belongings. There was an abandoned cup of coffee in the central command bay, accompanied by a knocked over swivel chair. Jared found no weapons. While it seemed that almost everything else in the outpost had been left behind, there had been special care taken to make sure not a single bullet was forsaken. Jared both commended and regretted the action.

After making sure the outpost was truly void, he found a little radio room and tried to hail Miller one more time. Jared wasted another few moments in that attempt, and this time grew a little more worried. As far as he could tell, the radio at this outpost was in perfect working order. Maybe, he decided as he left out the front door and began making his way down the valley, Miller's radio was unreliable.

Or maybe something worse had happened.

Jared tried to shake that thought as he splashed across a river that cut through the valley. Cliff walls rose high on either side of him, and he tried not to think about feeling trapped. And just as he attempted to chase off those dark thoughts, Jared noticed it. A not so distant groan. Jared raised his pistol. It was followed by another, off to his left, then a third and fourth, to his right. Yet more answered from ahead.

Jared's eyes widened in real fear for the first time since leaving his outpost. He crested a ridge, coming to a high point in the valley, and stared around him. There had to be a couple of dozen of the things. Jared made a split second decision, booking for the far end of the valley. He could outrun these things, no problem.

He didn't have enough bullets to deal with all of them. Well, he might have, but that wasn't the point. The point was, he knew this was a fight he could run from. He might come up up against a fight he _couldn't_ run from, and then he'd be shit out of luck if he wasted all his rounds here. Jared rushed on, not in a dead run, but more than a jog.

As he approached the second listening post, he considered going inside and investigating it, for there might always be survivors or supplies, but decided against it. He didn't want to get trapped and be forced to shoot his way out. As he passed it, splashing across the small river once more, he noticed that this listening post had a small blue symbol painted on it. What was the significance of the symbols? He shrugged mentally and hurried on.

The caves were up ahead, their entrance a dim hole in the valley wall. Jared could see lights inside, and was thankful. He hadn't been able to find any flashlights. Jared rushed on, casting a glance over his shoulder. Yes, there were upwards of the twenty of the stumbling, moaning things coming for him now. But they were dozens of meters behind him, not even close to the second listening outpost. If he was lucky, they'd forget about him when he disappeared into the cave system. Jared returned his attention to the front.

He plunged into the cave, slowing to a walk as he did so. The way was narrow. Overhead, strips of white lighting lit the way, flickering occasionally. A few of them had gone dead. Jared sighed quietly, wondering how well-maintained this path was. He kept his pistol firmly in hand, making his way down the tunnel. The way seemed simple enough for the moment, just straight ahead. He kept glancing over his shoulder as he went, making sure no zombies were sneaking up on him. The idea seemed silly, as they always seemed to groan and growl.

The path behind remained empty, and eventually he could no longer see the entrance. He hurried on, focusing his attention forward. Every now and then, a side passage would appear to the left or the right. They rarely seemed to go anywhere, and some were closed off, almost none of them were lit. Jared could envision some of them being used for storage. If this were during wartime, he could envision all the side passages lit and well-maintained. This would make a great place to fall back to in case of Covenant invasion.

Jared considered his career as he worked his way through the caves. He wondered how it had come to this, but already knew the answer. Jared had seen a lot of action during the war. It had usually been brutal and bloody. He'd fought on a dozen different planets, sometimes in the space between worlds, until he, like so many others, had been recalled back to Earth during that last, desperate struggle for survival.

He'd gone to the Ark after defending his planet, and barely made it back home after narrowly escaping the clutches of both the Covenant and then the Flood. He shuddered at the thought. The Flood were a truly a terrifying enemy. He hoped to never fight them again. And then, after the Ark, after rebuilding the Earth and spending a little while hunting down the Covenant left behind...he'd been shipped out here.

He'd asked for a reassignment, something with a bit of challenge. Xerxes had been a challenge alright, a challenge to not go out of his mind with boredom. The problem was that there was nothing left to do, it seemed. The Covenant were gone, dissolved, and the Flood had been wiped out. So what did that leave for tens of millions of battle-hardened warriors who had spent a good portion of their lives fighting for survival?

Jared sighed quietly and stopped his pondering as he finally located the elevator. It was a simple lift that went straight up through a hole in the ceiling. Jared stepped aboard and pressed the button, then waited for the thing to head up.

It would seem that he had got his wish: he was finally living in interesting times again. He just hoped he would survive to tell about it.


	4. The Pit

**Chapter 04  
><strong>_-The Pit-_

The Pit loomed ahead.

Jared spotted a collection of abandoned landing pads, cracked with age and weather. Not a single ship rested on any of them. No vehicles, either. Jared would have killed for a Warthog, or even a Mongoose. He was in good enough shape to walk or run long distances, but that didn't mean he particularly enjoyed it.

Especially when there was work to be done. A few zombies were milling about the landing pads. There were several unmoving forms scattered across the cracked instacrete. Killed by Miller and his team of survivors? Jared kept the pistol ready as he continued his advance. In the center of the landing pads stood the structure: a squat, titanium building that was too small to hold an entire training complex in it.

Below, then. Jared had been vaguely aware of this place, knowing it only as an abandoned structure. If he had known it was a training complex, he probably would have made it a point to visit and get some training done. Jared raised the pistol and fired as he reached the edge of the landing pad. The first zombie's brains dissolved into a black spray of gore and it collapsed to the ground with a hard thud.

That grabbed the attention of the others. Jared put them down, one by one, until he had emptied the magazine and the last undead thing fell. Inspecting his work, looking around in a full sweep, Jared reloaded and nodded tightly to himself. Not too bad of a job. He stalked on, adjusting the duffel bag strap that he had slung over his neck so that it sat under his right arm. The entrance, he noticed as he made it about halfway across the ancient landing pad, was invitingly, and disturbingly, open. That made him pause.

Why would it be open?

Jared stopped, reached into the duffel bag and pulled out one of the handheld radios. He powered it up and tried to reach Miller. The cold, dead silence of an open channel continued to mock him. Jared swallowed, nervous suddenly. Something wasn't right here. His instincts, previously quiet, used to the idea of these stumbling things, suddenly began to chatter again. Jared turned off the radio and replaced it.

He continued, more apprehensive than before, and kept the pistol ready. As he closed in the last ten meters to the darkened doorway, he took a calculated risk.

"Sergeant Miller?" he called out. Nothing. Jared frowned, chewing on his lip briefly, then finally kept going.

He stepped in through the door. The interior lights of the lobby were dim, but he could see signs of life. There was a half-eaten meal at the entrance desk. Jared moved closer to investigate and found it still warm. The disturbing thing, however, wasn't the meal. It was the spatters of blood on and around it. A drop of blood dripped from overhead and landed on the desk. Jared glanced up. There was a ventilation shaft overhead, the grate broken open. Blood was sprayed on the ceiling around the opening.

Jared swallowed nervously. Yes, something was very wrong here. He considered the situation. Go deeper in, or just leave? But where else could he go? Better to be outside than trapped inside with...something. But there could be others alive. In need. Hurt or dying. Jared made his decision and moved deeper into the facility.

He listened intently as he stalked through the corridor, checking each room as he came to it. Most turned out to be empty, a few had the remains of some office supplies in them. He passed a derelict bathroom, an empty messhall and several vacant storage rooms. Nothing contained anything resembling Miller or his supposed crew.

However, as he made his way even deeper, out of the office and living area and back towards the command and control center, he began finding disturbing clues. He saw sprays of blood and shell casings. No bodies, though. Or body parts. And there were burst open vent grates, always lined with fresh blood.

Jared could feel tension mounting. His combat instincts were screaming at him, warning him that he had become the hunted. He began to hear things, soft mutterings echoing up from the vents, something stalking around in there. Jared very seriously considered leaving, but he had to know if anyone had survived.

He finally found his answer as he reached Command Control, an observation deck that overlooked the training complex spread out before it a level down. There was a lift attached to the deck, granting access to the training center itself. Jared found Miller, gripping his stomach and paler than death, leaned up against a control console. He had a shotgun across his lap. He was dead, blood having dribbled down his chin.

Jared came to stand before him and knelt. He reached forward to grab the shotgun, a nice addition to his arsenal, and nearly passed out from fright when Miller jerked awake.

"Who are you?" he wheezed, obviously very close to dying.

"Corporal West. We spoke on the radio," Jared replied quietly, glancing over his shoulder. Miller chuckled grimly.

"Ah, yes...West...glad you could make it." He began coughing, spraying Jared's chest with flecks of blood.

"What happened here?"

"Something...new, West. These zombies...they're getting smarter. And...changing. Becoming...better. Evolving. This one...in the vents...get out of here, West." Miller groaned once more, then closed his eyes. Jared considered his words, then took the shotgun. Yes, it was time to be moving. Overhead, something growled.

Jared began making tracks, hurrying back through the facility as he checked out the shotgun. Miller had been kind enough to leave it fully loaded. Jared holstered the pistol and kept the shotgun handy. It made him feel a little bit better. Miller's words echoed through his skull. The zombies were...evolving?

How could that be? Zombies didn't do that. They were just...zombies. Make them any stronger and it wouldn't be fair. It already wasn't fair, but that would tip the scales in their favor too much. Then again, life wasn't fair. Not by a long shot.

Jared came into the lobby. He made for the door, but sparks caught his attention.

"No..." he whispered, horror sliding over him, sending chills down his spine. He hurried to the door and tried to open it. It was locked, and the control panel was bashed in. Something like laughter bubbled out of the nearest vent. Fear tore at Jared. He considered his options. He hadn't seen any other ways out along his path.

Command Control. He needed to get there, fire up the computer and figure a way out of the Pit. Jared turned and began retracing his steps, feeling the pressure of unseen eyes on him. He kept his shotgun out, warily watching any vents as he ran past. A few harrowing moments later, Jared was back with Miller's corpse.

He found the nearest terminal and fired it up. Working hastily, he brought up a map of the complex. After a few moments of inspection, Jared frowned. There was only one other way out of the structure: on the other side of the training course. He considered going back and trying to force the door open...but it looked pretty firmly shut.

He stared down over the darkened training course. The thought of being hunted through it by...whatever it was, was not appealing. A soft growl from somewhere nearby spurred him into action. Jared attempted to bring the lights of the course on, but found that only half of them worked. He sighed and then hurried into the elevator.

Jared took it down, keeping his shotgun ready and his pistol holster unlatched. The lift descended, grinding slowly into the depths of the cold and dark training complex. Jared shuddered involuntarily. The idea of a zombie that crept through the ventilation shafts disturbed him on a deep, primal level. The lift shuddered to a halt and Jared stepped out, his shotgun raised. He found himself at the beginning of a maze of tight, narrow corridors.

Jared sighed quietly. This was not going to be fun. He kept the shotgun tight to his shoulder as he plunged into the darkened corridors. He began to work his way through them warily. At first, it wasn't so bad. Dark, sure. Scary, yeah. But, for a few moments, Jared allowed himself to begin to believe that whatever it was had gone away. Maybe it wasn't able to follow him into the training pit itself for whatever reason.

Then he heard a series of rapid noises, like claws on metal, coming from a ventilation shaft nearby. Jared tried to track to noise, tempted to just face and kill the thing right then and there. But, after a few pulse-pounding seconds, he forced himself to keep going. He was sure he was going to face it sooner or later, why race it to the grave? He hurried on, already beginning to sweat. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Jared's heart nearly gave out as he turned a corner and one of the few functional pop-ups popped out at him. He almost, _almost_ squeezed the trigger, but somehow managed to not do it. Somewhere overhead, he thought he could hear something akin to laughter. He hurried on. As Jared neared what he was reasonably certain was the halfway point a ventilation grate directly overhead exploded, showering him with shrapnel rain.

He cried out, pointed the shotgun up and this time, he did fire. He hit nothing but metal, growled and watched the hole the ceiling for signs of movement. After a few seconds, another vent grate exploded. He turned and fired, then abruptly realized what the thing was doing: it was getting him to waste his ammo.

He began running again, and as he did, caught something out of the corner of his eye. Up ahead, in another vent grate yet destroyed, Jared spotted a pair of eerie, glowing crimson orbs staring at him. He felt fear slither around coldly in his gut and pushed himself harder. He needed to be out of here. Jared rushed on.

As he ran, desperately navigating the training arena, he could hear the sound of the thing without a name moving overhead of him. Keeping pace with him. As he came upon the final approach, vent grates began to explode in swift succession. Jared ran faster, rushing through the corridors. He finally burst out the other side and rushed into the corresponding lift. He spun around as soon as he was in, slapped the button and raised the shotgun.

Nothing was waiting for him as the doors closed and the lift began to raise. Jared realized he was holding his breath and let it out slowly. The lift continued to raise. Jared kept the shotgun pointed at the door. Seconds ticked by. Finally, the lift settled into place and the doors opened. Nothing awaited him in the room beyond.

He made his way slowly out of the elevator, checking his corners and making sure that whatever it was wasn't lurking somewhere. Jared got out of the Command Control on this side, discovering that the layout of this area mirrored the one he had just come from. Good, he could navigate his way out to the other side. Unless...the thing had already smashed that control panel, too. Or maybe it hadn't yet, but it was going to.

Jared began hurrying. He ran through the dimly lit corridors until he arrived at the main entrance. No sparks, no damage. Jared let out a sigh of relief. He moved forward to hit the access button and escape this hellish maze.

As he hit the button, something overhead creaked. He realized, almost instantly, the trap he had fallen into. Jared threw himself backwards as another vent grate erupted overhead. He glanced up, bringing the shotgun into play, as something descended from the ceiling in a rain of metal sparks. Jared squeezed the trigger almost without aiming.

Lucky break. The blast caught the thing in the chest and sent it flying backwards. It thrashed briefly on the ground, still alive by a thread. Jared rose to his feet, staring at this new horror. This was no typical zombie. What lay before him, bleeding blood the color of outer space in an ever-widening pool, was a new terror.

It was incredibly lithe, but the muscles were pushed up taught against the skin. Its face had an almost streamlined, reptilian look. Its eyes were pools of blood-red liquid that still shone despite the fact that it had stopped moving, finally dead. Just to be safe, Jared put a pistol round into its skull. He noted that the teeth were longer and the claws looked decidedly sharper. Moving carefully, Jared stepped around it and outside.

Once he was across a landing pad and in a field beyond the training complex, he breathed easy again. In the distance, he could see another structure. Deciding anywhere was better than the Pit, Jared began to make for it, glancing over his shoulder as he went.


	5. Power

**Chapter 05  
><strong>_-Power-_

Whatever that thing had been, there seemed to be only one. For the moment.

The thing in the Pit washed an entirely new wave of fear over Jared. He mulled over the implications of this new entity as he stalked along the grassy plains. A breeze whispered across the tall grasses, making everything shift and sway gently. Jared reflected, with some quantum of solace, that he was at least out of the network of valleys and trenches. Not having the high ground made him uneasy and grated on his combat senses.

What did this shadowy zombie mean? Zombies were one thing. He could, he had discovered very quickly, handle them. They were weak. They were slow. They stumbled, they gave away their position, they didn't think tactically. The only problem was getting into an enclose space with them, and if they had numbers. That, and the one-bite-and-you're-finished problem. Again, Jared made a note to scavenge some armor.

But this new thing...it was highly disturbing. It suggested disquieting possibilities. Jared had no idea how the denizens of this planet had been turned into the walking undead. More than likely, it wasn't natural. And if it wasn't natural, then maybe it was planned. And if it was planned, then maybe the walking dead were just step one.

And maybe whatever he'd just encountered was step two.

If step two was this ugly, he hated to see what the endgame was supposed to look like. All at once, Jared found the idea of getting off-world and out-of-system very appealing. As he began to toy around with the idea of finding a ship with a faster-than-light capable engine, he realized he was on a final approach to the structure he'd been walking towards for a while now.

It loomed before him, beset on all sides by grassy fields littered with shady copses and a few creeks. No zombies, but he thought he could hear quiet moaning coming from within the structure. As Jared came within a couple of dozen meters of it, he realized it wasn't exactly a structure. More like a large wall housing something within. There were arches cut into the wall, admitting access. They were, however, fenced off.

Jared approached the chainlink fence, staring into the compound. There were buildings clustered around the interior of the main wall and what appeared to be large banks of energy related equipment intertwined with the structures. A few zombies lingered, milling about, wearing yellow uniforms. Somewhere, something sparked occasionally. But none of this had Jared's attention. What he was focusing on was the enormous windmill that dominated the view, positioned directly in the center of the whole area.

He stared at it for several seconds. It was huge, easily fifty feet high. Just an enormous metal ring with three blades inside of it, spinning very slowly. Jared couldn't even begin to fathom the reason for this enormous construction. Eventually, he let it go and hunted around for a way inside. Once he was in, he cleared the courtyard of zombies. He was careful not to break any of the already damaged equipment, popping the undead things in the head one at a time. In the end, he traded a magazines-worth of pistol ammo for a collection of corpses.

They were all workers at what Jared came to realize was a power plant. He was, however, hard pressed to figure out just where, exactly, it provided power to. All outposts, bases and stations had their own, independent generators. It was a rule. So maybe there was a colony or city around here, somewhere.

Jared began hunting around, trying to figure out his next move. With Miller and his crew dead, Jared was running out of ideas. He supposed he could go back to the valleys, do more investigations. There were a handful of other outposts in that complex of trenches: a couple more listening stations, a radar outpost, a small cluster of relay centers much like his own, and a storage facility he knew about. But something told him that they would be just as dead as anywhere else he'd gone so far. So what did that leave him with?

He moved in a slow circle around the interior buildings. He found a small warehouse, a power monitoring station, a living center that was a mesh of an infirmary, a messhall, a rec room and some dorms, and a pair of large structures mainly dedicated to maintaining the power station. The warehouse was abandoned, void of anything alive or undead. The power regulators were in much the same manner, housing only a small collection of former workers.

It was in the living center that Jared began to find signs of life. He discovered evidence that someone had been here, someone other than the local population of technicians and engineers. And recently, too. Maybe as little as three days ago. No more ammo for his depleted reserves, which was beginning to bother him.

The war had coddled Jared in a unique way: he rarely had to ration his supplies. At least when it came to guns. It seemed that, when fighting the Covenant, there were _always_ weapons around. Whether or not they were human weapons was of little consequence to Jared. In fact, he took some perverse pleasure in murdering the Covenant with their own arsenal. Despite his frequent training, living the easy outpost life had rendered him only softer.

Jared decided to take a break and eat lunch. It was pushing past noon anyway. He finished by clearing out the command area and attempting to raise someone on the comms. When that failed, he made for the messhall, pulled out an MRE and scavenged the local kitchen for some soda. He found it in the form of a six-pack of Vex, his favorite brand. It was good stuff, and its latest in a long line of differently themed sub-types was called High Voltage and had a raspberry taste to it. He drank and ate and smirked at the interesting connotations of having a soda named High Voltage at a power center. When he was finished, he threw away the remains.

Jared stepped back out into the open area, briefly eying the enormous windmill. He noticed it was darker. A low cloud cover was moving in, painting the area in shades of gray. The horizon threatened him with rain. He frowned, but only briefly, and decided to get a move on. Jared returned to the command center, seating himself in the radio shack. He stared at the unyielding equipment for a few moments in ponderous silence.

For the first time, it occurred to him that he should actually try to fix the radio. He was tired of running off to the next base and just _hoping_ that the next radio worked. The problem was that the damned thing wouldn't turn on. The whole radio room was dead. The Corporal stared, frowning, before it finally occurred to him.

"What am I...stupid, all of a sudden?" he muttered.

Power, it must not be getting power. Jared left the radio room and made for the command center. He settled into a swivel chair and booted up the computer. After a few moments of clumsy navigation, he managed to bring up a schematic of the base and run a diagnostic on it. He had to waste another few minutes sorting through a couple of dozen different damage reports, systems malfunctions or minor damages to the power equipment, before he located what he was looking for. It seemed that something had cut power to the radio room.

He located where the damage was on the holographic display, as well as what would need to be done: a power junction would need to be repaired. Well, he supposed he could do that. It couldn't be _too_ hard, and he was somewhat familiar with technical things. Jared appropriated a repair kit from the command center and headed outside.

It was much grayer by the time he came back out. No rain yet, but distantly, thunder boomed and lightning forked the sky. Jared located the rogue junction box, the thing that had been sparking earlier. It had been hit by a stray bullet. He pulled the casing off and stared at the innards. Jared licked his lips, studying it for several moments, then became _fairly_ sure he could do it. Cracking open the repair kit, he set to work.

Minutes passed by in tense silence. He kept his ears open for anything, attempting to split his attention between guard duty and repair work. It was times like this when he'd kill to have another survivor with him, even if only to watch his back. The seconds continued to tick by. Twice, something zapped Jared and left him with sore fingers. He was close to giving up and trying something else when, all at once, the junction box lit up.

Quickly, he closed it and moved back into the building. Jared felt joy well within him as he approached the radio room and saw it lit from within. He took a seat at the central console and began hunting through the frequencies. It didn't take long to get an answer.

_"__I hear you, Corporal West. You say your broadcasting out of the Zanzibar Power Plant?"_

"Yeah...who's this? Where are you?"

_"__My name is Corporal Stanton. I'm currently en route to the GWC Facility with a squad. We were just at Zanzibar a few days ago, but decided to relocate."_

"I noticed some remnants. Where's this GWC Facility located?"

_"__It's about halfway in between Zanzibar and our new current headquarters, about two miles north of your position. If you hoof it, you can meet us there, and we'll induct you into our squad."_

"Roger that, I can be there quick."

_"__Alright, but fair warning...we're investigating the GWC Facility because a squad of ours went missing there...so watch your back."_

"Affirmative. See in you soon."

Jared cut the link and gathered his things. He had to hurry. He didn't want to lose out on another batch of survivors.


	6. Ghost Town

**Chapter 06  
><strong>_-Ghost Town-_

It began to rain, a gentle mist, as Jared came within visual distance of the GWC Facility. He wondered, idly, what GWC stood for. He had his pistol holstered, his shotgun in hand. There was something bugging him about the facility that loomed before him. It was an ugly thing, built into the side of a large hill. In the distance, beyond the structures, Jared spied mountains. It was the direction the survivors had, according to them, set up camp. He wondered if their new headquarters was based in or on the mountains.

Jared brushed some rainwater off his face. He was eager to get inside. But as he came to the threshold of the GWC Facility, he found it to have long ago been abandoned to the elements. Similar to Zanzibar, this place was less of one, whole structure and more of a wall surrounding an entire collection of buildings.

Not so similar to Zanzibar was the asymmetrical nature of the place. From where Jared stood, he had a good view of the entire complex. It was a mess, tracks and paths cut in between the structures, overgrown with weeds. Some of the structures had partially collapsed, the instacrete giving up the ghost. There were catwalks cutting across everywhere in between the tops of most of the buildings, giving the entire area an almost natural second story.

Everything was grim and gray, stained with rainwater and eroded with time. Jared tried to spy the team, either the ones that were already supposed to be here, or the ones on the way in, but he couldn't spot any movement. He fished the handheld radio out of his pocket and keyed it.

"This is Corporal West to Corporal Stanton, do you copy?" There was a pause, then a haze of static, then,

_"__I hear you, West. Are you close by?"_

"I'm at the edge of the Facility. What's your position?"

_"__We're on final approach to the Facility ourselves, from the opposite end. Have you heard from anyone?"_

"No."

_"__Have you seen anyone?"_

"No."

_"__Alright...watch your back. Head into the compound, we'll meet near the center."_

"Affirmative."

Jared put the radio away, this time into his pocket. He took one last look over the facility, attempting to discern some hint of life from the gray weathered structures, and eventually abandoned the effort.

Jared made his way down, climbing down a ladder that put him at the edge of the compound, in between a pair of buildings. One was half-collapsed, the entire outer wall falling away to reveal the gutted innards of the structure. It was a multi-tiered building that apparently used to house offices. He saw remnants of desks and chairs and other such furniture. Vines now grew over most of the interior. Jared pressed on.

He made his way down a narrow 'road', little more than a path, created between the large, looming structures. It was like being in the valleys again. Jared clutched his shotgun a little tighter, hunting the shadows and broken windows for signs of life. Still, he couldn't find a thing. He went about five minutes before he heard the first moan, followed by a distant gunshot. Jared pressed on, between more collapsed buildings, faster now.

As he continued, he heard more gunshots, getting closer. And, over the soft pattering of the rain and the occasional bullet, he heard something else. It was a low, eerie moaning, entirely unlike that of the average zombie. He began to wonder if that's what the stalking kind of zombie made. But the other one in The Pit had been as silent as death. The idea of another mutation presented itself to Jared, and he found it none too appealing.

When Jared found Corporal Stanton and the others, he nearly had his head blown off. A trigger-happy Private put a round into the door frame next to him as he stepped into what appeared to be a one-story rec building at the center of the compound.

"Hold fire!" Stanton snapped, smacking the gun aside. Jared was tensed up, but relaxed, slightly, as he saw the collection of grim looking Marines. There were five of them, all in armor, all holding a weapon of some kind. Shotguns and pistols, mostly. One carried a battle rifle.

"So...we finally meet, West. You bit?" Stanton asked while the others investigated the rec building.

"Bit?" It occurred to Jared a second after he asked. "Oh, no. I'm not bit."

"We'll find out, one way or another. Turn time is ten minutes now," Stanton replied grimly.

"Alright, this is going to sound strange but...I'm completely lost. I have no idea what's going on." Stanton looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I just woke up from a short coma yesterday and have been wandering the countryside every since. I came from the valleys." Stanton considered this, then glanced around as the others came back and reported negative contacts or traces of the first team.

"Let's walk and talk...alright, people, now that there's six of us, we're going to break off into two groups. Jared, did you see anyone over in the living quarters?" Stanton asked, turning back to him. Jared shook his head.

"No, but I didn't really look around."

"Alright...the compound is divided up into four sections: the treatment plant itself, a couple of larger warehouses meant to hold extra water before and after processing, the living quarters and the utilities. Marshall, you're going to take Webb and Davis to the living quarters and do a thorough sweep. Nash, you're with me and West, we'll check out the warehousing. Once we've made our sweep, we'll meet up at utilities, search it and then head for the treatment planet itself. Clear?"

There were a string of 'yes, corporal's, followed by a general din of movement. Jared followed Stanton and a Private named Nash out of the rec room and towards a pair of enormous, ominous structures. They walked silently through the rain, first making a sweep of the outside area. Stanton began talking in a low voice.

"Why don't you tell me what happened to you, first," he suggested. So Jared did. While they patrolled the perimeter, making sure the outside was secure, Jared told his tale. By the time they were making for the interior, he had brought the Corporal up to speed. Then Stanton began his own explanation.

"We have no idea where it came from, only that it seemed to show up in every city all at once. One day, I woke up and everyone was a zombie. Or so it seemed. It was...very confusing. I was with Staff Sergeant Scott at a military base in Jackson when it happened. We were all mobilized to get into the city and control the 'rioting'. Man, that fell apart quick. We spent twelve hours running around that city, attacking...falling back...attacking...falling back. It was hell. Lost a _lot_ of good men. And then we lost contact with command..."

They began making their way around the first warehouse, which was little more than a big room housing a pair of gigantic water tanks. There didn't appear to be anything in the area. Stanton's face was grim now, grimmer than before.

"Most of the men wanted to bug out, and I think Scott was with them...but we couldn't bug out properly without some ships or at least vehicles. We fought our way back to the military base...it was a total slaughterhouse. Zombies everywhere. We shot our way to the Hangar...it was cleared out. Empty. We shot our way to the motorpool and managed to snatch a small fleet of Warthogs, mostly Carriers. We abandoned Jackson, drove for a long, long time. Put a hell of a lot of distance between us and that horde."

Stanton fell quiet again, Jared and the other Marine, Nash, listening intently to him. He looked as if he'd heard something, and hushed the others. Jared hadn't heard anything, but he knew he wasn't infallible. Stanton disappeared into a small back room. A few moments later, he returned.

"Nothing," he murmured. "Come on, this place is a tomb. Let's go to the next one." As they headed for the second warehouse, checking in with the other team, Stanton kept talking.

"We drove around for another two days, stopping by a few installations. Everywhere was abandoned, it seemed. We couldn't raise anyone on the radio. Scott kept us together, kept us going, kept us alive. I think we'd be a lot worse off without him. We were lucky. Scott's seen a lot, he was on the Ark, on Delta Halo, on Earth when the shit went down...he was still ready for war. Eventually, we found Zanzibar, rested and got back up to strength. We found a map of the area, decided to make for Rat's Nest."

They continued their sweep of the warehouse, still finding nothing. But the relative silence was broken by a long, deep moan that resonated unpleasantly in Jared's bones.

"What _is_ that?" Nash growled.

"Have you found any other new types?" Jared asked.

"No...but the thought has occurred to us. We've encountered a couple of the ones you found at the Pit. We call them Creepers," Stanton explained. Jared shuddered.

"Good name...so does anyone have _any_ theories on how this happened?" he asked.

"Oh, of course. Everyone has their own little theory worked out, and a lot of them fit. That's the problem. We've got nothing to go off of. Well..." he hesitated. "Not _nothing_. I mean, it's pretty suspicious that these things cropped up in every major city on the planet all at once. And, well, truth be told, Xerxes is a long way from anywhere. I suppose, if you were going to run an experiment _some_where, this would be a good place."

"You don't really think we'd do this to ourselves, do you?" Jared asked after a moment's consideration.

"Now, I didn't say that. I mean, the Covenant might be broken, but I'm sure _some_ of them survived. And while they've always been pretty blunt in their tactics, well...they've always been on the winning side, so they didn't have to be anything _but_ blunt. Now that we've got them on the run, maybe they're pulling some new tricks. All I'm saying is, given the clues so far, this was more than likely no accident."

As they headed out of the warehouse, moving to meet up with the others at the utilities center, Jared decided to ask another question that had been bugging him.

"Why did you guys send a squad here in the first place?"

"Well, we passed it on the way to Rat's Nest and figured we'd come back and check it out later. It was possible that there were supplies in here, however unlikely, and it was the nearest structure besides Zanzibar. Scott wanted to be double sure we weren't leaving anything behind...but now it looks like it might have cost us a lot more than it could gain us."

The next increments of time were measured in bleak, rainy silence. Living Quarters had yielded nothing, and as the squad reunited and checked out the third section, they began to hear that moaning sound again. It sent ripples of primal fear down Jared's spine. He suspected that, whatever it was, it was in the treatment facility.

Utilities was about as grave and void as everywhere else, though there were some clues as to the original team. A couple of fresh zombie corpses and some spent shell casings. The trail led towards the treatment plant. Reluctantly, Jared and the others gathered outside of it. The structure itself was a large gray rectangle, punctured by broken windows and dark doorways. They all stared it at, everyone unwilling to make the first move.

Whatever was making those noises was sure to be in there.

Jared took the first step forward. The others followed suit. They came into the plant, finding the air still and lifeless. They found themselves in a large, open room, much like a factory floor. Enormous distillation machines flanked them to either side in long rows. Rain drained in through several holes in the ceiling.

"Stanton...I've got blood here," Nash whispered, staring a dark stain on the floor. Jared couldn't tell if it was black or red.

"I've got blood here, too," Webb muttered.

"Shit, there's blood everywhere," Jared growled. As their eyes adjusted to the lighting, the slaughter that took place here became obvious. What remained of the previous squad lay splattered about in heaps of limbs, broken bones and bloodied, torn muscle.

"Holy _shit_!" Stanton cried.

"I think we should get out of here," Jared murmured. And then he heard it. Something was breathing very, very heavily nearby.

"What _is_ that?" Nash whispered.

There was a blur of dark movement from Jared's peripheral. He didn't have time to react. One second, Webb was standing there, a little bit further into the area than everyone else, and the next second he was not.

He was impaled upon the long, dark limb that ended in a gleaming, razor sharp point. The limb was attached to a huge, intimidating looking creature. Something entirely new. Jared realized he was looking at the next step on this terrifying evolutionary ladder. What stood before him, roaring like a Hunter and waving Webb's corpse around like a bloody flag, was huge. Easily eight or nine feet tall. And thick.

Its body was bulky with raw muscle, and did not look decayed at all. It was the opposite, in fact. Its skin was blackened and thick, the muscles pressing against the surface. Its eyes glowed a deep, deep crimson.

The beast flung Webb aside and turned its eyes on the others.

"Open fire!" Stanton screamed unnecessarily.

The shotgun in Jared's hands spoke. The muzzle flare lit up everything for a fraction of a second, and the shell slammed into the broad chest of the new zombie. It stumbled, thick black blood flying in a thick spray, then roared again and began charging towards them as the bullets pelted it. Jared narrowly dodged out of the way, diving to his left while firing off another blast at close range that staggered the great beast as it charged by.

Jared rolled over onto his back just in time to see Davis' neck being punctured by the thing's pointed arm. It ripped up and flung his head away. His body took a few awkward steps, blood fountaining up out of the neck, before collapsing to the ground and spraying the beast with a fresh wave of blood.

Stanton showed his initiative as a Corporal, and a Marine, as he took the opportunity to rush up, place the shotgun he was holding to the face of the huge thing and squeeze the trigger. The blast, at point-blank range, took the creature's head off. It staggered backwards, standing for a few seconds. Everyone tensed up, ready for anything.

The thing smashed to the ground, collapsing into an unmoving heap. Stanton let out a long breath of relief.

"Holy _shit_," he whispered. "That was _insane_." Jared nodded, slowly getting to his feet.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he muttered.


	7. Rat's Nest

**Chapter 07  
><strong>_-Rat's Nest-_

Jared was tired. It was getting to be the end of a long day and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. Despite the miserable losses at the GWC Facility, Stanton had insisted on sticking around and making double sure there was nothing of use hidden among the treatment plant. They policed up the supplies from all the corpses made by the new beast, which Jared began referring to as a Berserker. It seemed to fit.

After that, with the sun fading into the horizon, saturating the landscape in rainy twilight, the survivors trudged the two miles across muddy landscape back to their home base. While they walked, Stanton talked with Jared. Already, he could see that he was going to take a liking to this like-minded Corporal.

"You got any women back at camp?" Jared asked. Stanton chuckled.

"Some, yeah. And not all of them are spoken for. Believe it or not, the books and movies aren't _entirely _accurate. Zombie apocalypses doesn't turn everyone into a sex-crazed maniac."

"Yeah, I figured as much. It's probably because we're all soldiers, and we're all used to these life-or-death situations. Eh, I was never very good with women anyway," Jared grumbled, only half serious. Truth be told, a little boy-girl action would go a long way to easing his pains, both mental and physical. They were much closer to the mountains now. Jared could see what Stanton called Rat's Nest now, a glowing hole cut into the side of the one of the mountains, high up above the ground level. It would make a perfect hideout.

"So, has anyone been able to call for help?" Jared asked, switching gears.

"No...that's the other thing that's really strange about this whole thing. Communications has been really spotty. It's difficult enough to raise someone on the planet. We haven't been able to get a single transmission out-of-system. And believe me, we've tried. That's what we were doing at Zanzibar: boosting our signal. Some of the guys say it's because of a failure in this part of the comms network that blankets our planet, but Staff Sergeant Scott and I think otherwise."

"If Zombies popped up everywhere at all once, then it's not that much of a stretch to think that whoever did it also had the means and the reason to kill off-planet comms capabilities," Jared reasoned. Stanton nodded.

"Scott's gonna love you," he said. Jared chuckled.

"So, what's in store for the immediate future?"

"Not sure. For now, we're just holing up at Rat's Nest and trying to radio survivors. To date, we haven't found anyone but you. I think Scott is thinking something up, but he hasn't told anyone yet." Stanton fell silent. He must have noticed the look on Jared's face, because he spoke up again.

"Yeah, it looks pretty grim. But hey, it could be worse." Jared had to give him that. They spent the rest of the trip walking in silence.

* * *

><p>The way up to Rat's Nest turned out to be a lot easier than Jared thought it would be. He, Stanton, Nash and Marshall piled into a large cargo elevator and rode it up in silence. Jared was glad to be out of the rain, looking forward to a hot shower. From the way Stanton had described Rat's Nest, it sounded like something akin to Eden.<p>

The cargo lift deposited them into a large, gritty industrial cargo bay littered with huge crates and shifting equipment. A small collection of Marines were going through the crates, looking for something useful. Nash and Marshall broke off from the group at Stanton's command, assuring them that he could bring the news to the Staff Sergeant. Nash disappeared out of the room, but Marshall joined a pair of men attempting to open a particularly large crate. Before Jared was led out of the room, they popped it open.

"Holy shit!" one of the men cried, startling everyone. Several weapons were cocked.

"Relax, everyone," Marshall called, rolling his eyes.

"Relax my ass, this is an honest to God pair of Mongeese! I _love_ Mongeese!" the first Marine cried. Stanton laughed and led Jared out of the cargo bay.

"We're still opening up all the boxes, trying to figure out what'll help us. Lucky for us this was a military storage facility. Lots of guns and ammo and whatnot. Food and water, too. Enough MREs to feed an army for months. Come on," Stanton said, leading Jared down a lengthy corridor. "I'll take you to meet Scott."

"You just want someone there for when you have to break the bad news," Jared replied. Scott chuckled.

"You got me there."

Staff Sergeant Scott turned out to be a tall, intimidating man with a traditional high-and-tight of black hair and cold blue eyes that looked like they were backlit. He was tall and well cut, every inch a competent leader. He had taken up residency in a makeshift command area, converted from a room that doubled as the security center and the radio room. He stood in the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back, directing a quartet of men and women in orange jumpsuits.

"Staff Sergeant," Stanton called out. Scott swiveled to face the pair. To Stanton's credit, he didn't flinch.

"I trust you have good news for me, Corporal? And who's this?" Scott replied, walking to a door across the room and motioning for the pair to join him.

"Afraid not, Staff Sergeant," Stanton said as they followed. Scott led them into a small lounge that came complete with a table, chairs and a coffee machine. Stanton helped himself to a cup.

"What happened, Corporal?"

"First Squad was dead, and we lost half of Second Squad to a new mutation." Stanton gave it to him straight, no bullshit. Jared waited a little further away, wanting to stay out of this as much as he could. Scott's eyes flared, but this was the only betrayal of his emotions.

"I see...and I trust you recovered the lost supplies?"

"Yes, Staff Sergeant."

"And you didn't find any other survivors or supplies at the GWC Facility besides this man here?"

"No, Staff Sergeant."

"And what was this new mutation?" Stanton spent a few moments recounting every detail about the Berserker, relating it as bluntly and to-the-point as he could. Jared was impressed the exchange. You never had moments like these in typical post-apocalyptic zombie survival stories. After assimilating this information, Scott turned to Jared.

"And who are you?" Jared relayed his own story to the competent Marine, attempting to keep his story as concise as Stanton's own after-action report. It would seem that this man preferred such manner of conversation. At the end of it, Scott simply nodded.

"Well, Corporal, welcome to Rat's Nest. Make yourself at home. I'll assimilate you into the crew and you'll get your schedule soon. I'll have to readjust it to accommodate for the loss of life...you're both dismissed. Stanton, get him settled in."

"Yes, Staff Sergeant."

* * *

><p>The next two days passed in peace.<p>

Jared felt like he had come home. This batch of Marines holed up in a base carved into a mountainside felt more like a home than his outpost ever had. Stanton showed him to his room. It was small, but came complete with its own bed and shower. It was his. Stanton told him that he'd be back at some point with a schedule for him.

Jared closed and locked the door, then immediately made for the bathroom. He turned on the shower, filling the small, cramped room with steam. He stripped of his filthy, bloody clothes, opened the medical kit he'd been carrying around for a while and treated the small collection of scrapes and cuts he'd accumulated during his trip. After that, he stepped into the shower and spent half an hour enjoying the hot water.

When he was satisfied that he was clean, Jared stepped out and toweled off. He went into the adjoining bedroom and pulled on a fresh uniform he found in the dresser. After considering the situation briefly, he decided to sleep. He was exhausted. He crawled into bed, not even bothering to get under the blankets, and promptly slept.

He was awoken the next morning at eight sharp by Stanton. The Corporal had a datapad for him: his schedule. Jared wondered what could really be done besides the obligatory guard duty, which, at this altitude and environmentally isolated location, seemed less necessary than in most situations. As he roused himself and studied the datapad, he found that there was, in fact, much that Staff Sergeant Scott had found for him to do.

He was to be given forty five minutes to 'wake up', generous by military standards. After that, he was pulling a three hour shift of guard duty by one of the three entrances into the base. There were two cargo elevators and one area open to the world. It was sitting atop a cliff sheer with no reasonable way in, but Scott took no chances. And given what Jared had seen so far, he wouldn't trust the zombies not to climb, either.

After guard duty he would exercise for an hour and a half, followed by another hour and a half of lunch and recreation time. Then, another three hour shift of guard duty, followed by an hour of combat training to keep his skills from getting rusty, two hours of inventory, then dinner, some rec and finally, lights out.

Jared thought it was a good schedule, and almost wished he'd served under Scott at his outpost. Jared had discovered that while he was more than capable of thinking for himself on the battlefield, he went crazy when left to his own devices in a non-combat situation. He took the schedule very well. Guard duty wasn't as boring as he thought it might be, because he found that he got on well with the two others posted as the cargo lift.

He spent the entire shift talking with them, a pair of PFCs who hadn't seen much action and had come into the game just after the end of the war. They looked up to Jared in a way that was strange because he had been in the war, and had fought a hell of a lot of Covenant. He told them a few of his war stories, enough to fill the time of the guard duty.

The day only got better from there. Jared eventually learned that there were fifteen individuals in Rat's Nest besides himself. Scott was the highest ranking by far, there were no Sergeants and besides him and Stanton, only one other Corporal. Everyone else was either a Lance, a PFC or a green-as-grass Private. At first, Jared was worried there'd be some awkwardness amongst the crew. Not only was he the new guy, but that he outranked most of the survivors. But he was pleasantly surprised to find this not to be the case.

Turned out, so many of them hadn't seen combat that they were eager for those who had. In their mind, Jared was a genuine veteran. He spent most of his time just talking with them, but by the end of the first day, had centered his attention mainly on one of the survivors. The other Corporal. Her name was Megan.

They pulled guard duty together, alone, at a secondary entrance, a personnel elevator. At first, she was quiet and guarded, seemingly apprehensive of the new guy. But after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, followed by an attempt from Jared to start up a conversation, she carefully opened up. By the end of their shift together, they were swapping war stories. It turned out they also had training together.

Things got interesting when she opted for hand-to-hand. They had the training area to themselves. They spent an hour putting each other to the test and pinning each other to the mat. More than once Jared found himself enjoying the sight of her move. Megan had a grace to her that few women he'd encountered had.

After the training, they split up. Jared had taken a very quick shower, then gone for inventory. He was sad to not see her again, but kept it to himself. When that was finished, he ate and went to sleep in much the same manner as he did the first day.

Day two followed much like day one, the only variety being that he talked a lot more with Megan. She had almost completely opened up to him now, in that way that Marines did. When you were locked in combat with a genocidal enemy, at war and in a dangerous situation almost every day, you learned to do either one of two things: make friends fast or not at all. It seemed that Megan shared Jared's notion of the first option.

It was at the end of the second day that she showed up at his quarters. When Jared opened the door, he saw that she had shed her uniform in favor of some gym shorts and a form-fitting white tank top.

"Can I come in?" she asked. Jared nodded and stepped aside. She moved deeper into the room, and he closed the door behind him. When he turned around, he saw that she had shed her tank top and was working on her bra.

"Just so you know," she said, catching his eye and shucking off her bra, revealing her smooth, well-rounded breasts, "This isn't a boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I just want to take you for a test drive."

"Fair enough," Jared replied, unbuckling his belt.

* * *

><p>Morning found Jared awake before Megan. In the dim glow of the bedside clock, he studied her features. She was very attractive, in a Marine kind of way. Her face was somewhat plain, but her green eyes seethed with intelligence. Her brunette hair was shoulder-length, longer than regulation, but no one seemed to care. She was of an above average height, topping off at just over six feet. Her body was slightly tanned and smooth with wiry muscle.<p>

She was very good at sex.

Jared's admiration of her was ruined by a knock on the door. Sighing, he stood. Megan woke up, but let him handle it. He pulled on his boxers and opened the door a crack.

"Yes?" he asked. It was Stanton.

"Jared, Scott's called a meeting. Something's happening. Showered and dressed and in the command center in ten...and is Corporal Jones in there?" he asked, wearing a smirk. Jared rolled his eyes.

"What's it to you?" he replied.

"Just tell her the same thing," Stanton managed, his smirk morphing into a grin. Jared shut the door in his face, then turned on the lights. Megan was already getting up and heading for the bathroom. The shower stall was literally too small to fit both of them, so Jared leaned up against the sink and waited.

"So," he said, "am I boyfriend material?" Megan seemed to consider her answer.

"I haven't gathered enough information yet, _however_...I am willing not to have sex with anyone else if you're willing to do the same thing," she replied after a moment.

"Will you still have sex with _me_?" He could almost hear her rolling her eyes.

"Duh." Jared chuckled and kept waiting.

* * *

><p>The command center was crowded with the twelve Marines and four technicians, all gathered together and waiting for Scott to make his announcement. He was in the radio room, talking with someone. A moment later, he stepped out.<p>

"Everyone...I've managed to get into contact with someone that says they're preparing an evacuation...back in the city." There were several groans. Scott held up his hands. "I know, I know...we're comfortable and safe here. But we can't stay here forever, people. We all knew this was a temporary solution. It's become fairly obvious to me that this planet is FUBAR. If we can get into space, maybe we can make a call and get some backup, get some real evacuation going. So, here's the plan. We're going to load up all the supplies we can safely bring into our vehicles and make for Jackson.

"There, we'll cut our way through that city and get to the extraction point. It's on top of a tower of fancy apartments called Ivory Tower. We get there, get to the top and load up on some Pelicans. It's going to be a long, hard slog, but we can do it. You've all got an hour to get everything ready. So, get to it, Marines!"


	8. City of the Damned

**Chapters 08  
><strong>_-City of the Damned-_

They spent all of their hour getting everything ready.

Jared helped load up a contingent of Warthogs, two with mounted chainguns on the back and four Carrier Class, with everything they could think of. From guns and ammo, to medical supplies and spare uniforms, to repair kits and MREs. They loaded it all up into crates and cinched the crates firmly into place in the back of the Carriers.

Once the hour was up, everyone began to evacuate Rat's Nest. The Warthogs were loaded, two at a time, onto the cargo elevator Jared had originally ridden up in. The way below was clear, no zombies for miles. The past two days felt like warm memories quickly receding into the past as Jared rode out across the vast, grassy wastelands. He'd pulled driving duty in one of the chaingun models and Megan rode shotgun with Stanton in the back, manning the gun. They were silent as they began their trek, a convoy of five.

Jared considered the situation. Scott had been clear in outlining their path to the Ivory Tower. It sat near the center of the city, which was a huge pain in the ass. As Scott described it, the city of Jackson was completely FUBAR. Totally overrun with zombies. The past few days sounded like cake compared to what was up ahead.

They would have to start by cutting through the outer residential and commercial districts, which was going to be tough. After that, Scott had a route planned for them that would take them to a monorail that ran all across the city and would, hopefully, bring them straight to the tower. They'd have to get through a large portion of the city still under construction, followed by a decommissioned military testing range.

Jared was praying for luck. They'd need a lot of it if the city was a bad as Scott said it was. He'd made one last call to the person in the Tower, and it hadn't made him any happier. Jared knew it would be a long drive and, as they drove on, decided to try and get to know Megan more.

"So, what kind of history do you have?" he asked.

"I was in the war," she replied, almost as if he had accused her. Jared smirked.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah...alright, well, the tail end of it. I saw all the fighting on Earth. Did a lot of clean up there, too, before I got shipped out here."

"Did you request this assignment?"

"No. But I guess I didn't hate it, either. Xerxes' real boring but...well, let's just say that Earth took a lot out of me. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. It was practically non-stop combat for several months, and then a few more months of hunting through the ruins...I saw a lot of good people die and I just needed some time to unwind."

Jared was silent, feeling uncomfortable. He knew what she was talking about, to some degree. But where she sought a rest period, Jared only found himself yearning for more. He was a killer, and he knew it.

"What about you?" Megan asked.

"Me? I did a lot of fighting, here, there and everywhere. I was on the Ark and fought the Flood there. At Earth, too. Lots of brushes with death. I got stuck here after the war," Jared replied.

"How come you're still a Corporal then?"

"I...have difficulty with those above me, sometimes. When my CO makes a dumbass decision, I call him on it. And I'm usually right."

"You'd think being right would be a _good_ quality for someone to have."

"I thought so, too...but I never got to Sergeant. I made more enemies than friends...that's also more than likely why I ended up out here. In all honesty, I should have been a Staff Sergeant by now. I've lived quite a while in the war, fought my way through a dozen major battles. And now I'm here, with a bunch of zombies."

"Hey, at least you got some sex out of it," Megan said, smirking.

"There _is_ that."

* * *

><p>Jackson was burning.<p>

Obsidian skies bled ashes as the small convoy made their approach to the city. Skyscrapers were lit up like torches, the horizon painted in burning steel. The sight was nothing if not apocalyptic. Jared felt a shiver of apprehension trickle down his spine as the city came into view. The chatter on the comms faded into nothing as they came within the last mile. Jared had been given proper armor, and with that, a helmet and eyepiece.

He watched a small green triangle on the horizon. It was attached to one particularly tall tower that dominated the city. Below the triangle was a number that was shrinking in size as they made their final approach.

The convoy passed through the scattering of suburban sprawls with relative ease, driving in a single file through the streets. But as the houses and apartment complexes began to grow more dense, they started to have more trouble navigating the streets. The roads were becoming clogged with corpses and wrecked vehicles.

Jared drove slowly, leading the way. A task he would rather do without, but Scott thought he'd be up for the job. From the moment they entered the city, however, everyone who wasn't driving became engaged in firing upon the clusters of zombies that occupied the streets. The moaning, stumbling undead began to prove a problem.

At first, Jared didn't notice it. He was too busy driving. But when Megan pointed it out, he saw it. There was something more...guided, about the Zombies. They were acting with a little more precision, and moving a little faster, and they didn't seem quite as stupid as they once had. It worried Jared, but he let it slide for the moment.

As they reached the edge of the residential sector and began pushing into the commercial district, the real trouble hit. Jared pulled up to his sixth irreconcilable street, a choked snarl of burning vehicles. He sighed. The tower was still very far off.

"I think we might have to seriously consider abandoning the cars, Staff Sergeant," he reported into his radio.

_"__I was afraid of this...alright, everyone out. Grab whatever gear you can and get ready to hoof it. We're going to cut across that parking lot and head up the next street."_

At Scott's command, everyone began to dismount from their vehicles. Jared killed the engine, preparing to disengage. He didn't get the chance. Something let out a bone-chilling roar of primal fury and bounded up over the top of the pile of wrecked cars.

"_Berserker_!" someone screamed. The enormous infected thing leaped, flying through the air, and landed on the front of Jared's Warthog, crushing the engine in the process and nearly flinging the three inside from the vehicle. It roared once more, preparing to unleash hellish fury on them. Stanton beat the beast to it.

The sound of gunfire was painful in such close quarters. Jared and Megan rolled out of the vehicle as Stanton sprayed the huge beast with bullets point-blank from his position in the gunner's seat. The Berserker was physically picked up and thrown from the Hog, smashing back onto the pile of wrecked cars where it was quickly converted into chewed-up, smoking meat. When the gunfire died down, Jared turned to face Stanton.

"God_damn_," he breathed. Stanton laughed.

"Saved your ass," he replied. "_Both_ your asses," he added, looking at Megan. She and Jared thanked the Corporal as he dismounted. They quickly gathered whatever gear they could, then joined the others. Everyone had gathered at the edge of a large parking lot in front of a huge superstore. A secondary nav marker had been established, pointing them towards the metro station that contained, hopefully, a monorail that would take them to safety.

"Let's move it out, Marines!" Scott called once everyone was accounted for.

At first, progress was swift. They hurried across the parking lot in a tight formation, making tracks towards their destination. Resistance started out light, just the occasional zombie. Then it began to thicken, as dozens of Zombies started to come from seemingly everywhere. The sixteen survivors kept their gunshots tight and controlled, headshots only to the zombies dangerously close or up ahead of them. They could easily outrun the collection of undead.

They cut a bloody path through the commercial district of Jackson, dropping dozens of zombies as they rushed on. It was when they came out of the commercial district and punched into an area under construction that the real trouble began. The construction yard seemed to be a buffer between the district and the decommissioned firing range.

The construction yard itself extended away from them on all sides, a vast area of enormous, hulking equipment, skeletal frames of half-finished buildings and vacant lots. The place was curiously void of undead. Jared counted them lucky as Scott did a headcount and confirmed that they hadn't lost anyone on the run.

As they began to trudge through the area, past empty trailers and derelict moving equipment, a sense of mounting tension settled over them. Jared thought he caught something, quick and dark movement, off his peripheral. He stared to his left and up, gazing at a half-finished office building. There was nothing there, but the ashes made it difficult to tell for sure. They trekked on, picking up the pace.

The group began to murmur uncomfortably as they all began seeing more and more shadowy movement. They were about halfway through the yard when Scott called for a halt, as the movement had finally gotten close enough to show up on their motion trackers.

"Alright, something's out there," he said unhappily, scanning the ashy region around them. There were a few murmurs of agreement. "Has anyone seen exactly what it is?" No one said anything. Jared sure didn't, he'd hardly caught sight of...whatever they were. He was convinced there was more than one of them.

After a few moments of uncomfortable waiting, Scott decided to press on. Maybe they could get through the yard without facing whatever the things were. Jared knew this was unlikely. With how his life had been going lately, things were going to take a turn for the worse. And they did, just a few minutes later.

The relative calm was abruptly cut short by a sharp hiss, followed by a piercing scream. Everyone jerked around to see one of the Marines being dragged off into the ashy mist by...something. A dark figure that looked too thin. A pair of the Marines fired at where they had last seen the man and his mysterious attacker, but all was silent as their bullets ceased.

"What the _hell_ was that?!" one of the men snapped. Suddenly, one of the technicians began screaming. Everyone jerked to face him and caught sight of something similar happening.

"Run!" Scott roared. The group took off, and all around them the construction yard seemed to come alive. Jared bolted, keeping a sharp eye out.

"Creepers?" Megan asked, running alongside him. Jared shook his head, keeping his shotgun ready.

"No, something different," he replied grimly.

Two more Marines and a technician were taken by the time they reached the end of the construction area, broke across the drainage canal separating it and the next area, and came to stand before the large, ominous structure that was the decommissioned testing range. The front of the building was a large, open courtyard of instacrete, cordoned off by fencing. One of the surviving technicians managed to hack into the pad controlling the gateway, and they hurried through once it was open.

As soon as they were within, everyone turned and stood their ground, ready to face the creatures. The ashy mist seemed less thick here, and visibility was higher. Jared became convinced that they wouldn't come, and was about to say as much to Scott, when, suddenly, they came. There were somewhere near a dozen of them: shadowy, speedy figures that bounded easily over the tall fence and landed lithely in the courtyard.

Jared got his first good look at them. They were zombies...but nothing like they had seen so far. Their bodies had been elongated almost, warped to a skeletal thinness. Their claws were thin and razor sharp. Their eyes burned with a deep crimson, emanating evil. Their jaws had become large, stuffed with lethal teeth. Each began issuing shrieks and darting forward with incredible speed. Scott didn't even need to issue the 'open fire' order.

Triggers were squeezed. Guns spoke. The new monsters became heavy with lead. But they were fast, faster than anything had right to be. They managed to slash another one of the Marines before the last of the new things were taken down.

"Shit!" the man screamed, lying on his back on the instacrete, blood seeping down his left arm. The thing has cut deep grooves into his skin. The others were staying away from him, forming a loose circle around him. He looked up as Scott's shadow fell across him.

"I'm sorry," Scott said quietly. The man looked up at him, just a young Private, hardly out of his teens. Unshed tears welled in his eyes.

"I don't want to do it, y-you have to," he managed. Scott nodded. Jared watched the situation unfold with wide, unblinking eyes. This was a part of the outbreak he hadn't had to experience yet, safe in his valleys and Rat's Nest. He watched, shaky and sick with adrenaline and fear, as Scott pulled out his pistol. The Staff Sergeant placed the cold barrel to the Private's forehead. He looked like he was thinking of something to say, but when the young man closed his eyes, he thought better of it and squeezed the trigger.

The single shot resounded, echoing through the ash-stricken area. Scott turned around.

"What's everyone standing around for? Let's move it out, Marines!"

Everyone followed as he led the way. Jared mulled over the development as they cut through the firing range, finding it abandoned and empty. He found himself coming up with a name for the creatures as they hurried through the dim corridors. When he mentioned it the others, they immediately agreed and the name spread.

Speed Demons.

The survivors seemed to have used up their bad luck quota, as they managed to reach the monorail station without seeing another undead horror. The pair of surviving technicians managed to get the single monorail left in the station working, and before long, they were on their way towards the Ivory Tower.


	9. Darkening

**Chapter 09  
><strong>_-Darkening-_

It was quiet in the monorail car. The burning city flashed past them, smoldering in sullen silence. Jared sat back against the gently rattling bulkhead, his eyes closed, waiting for the ride to be over and the action to pick back up again. He still wasn't quite sure how to feel about these interludes, these calm little moments, eyes in the hurricane. They granted him a brief reprieve, a much-needed chance to rest and gather his strength back once more. They also made him nervous. He hated waiting, and the ear-shattering silence that fell after a lengthy battle.

Megan sat next to him, looking totally relaxed. Jared envied her. He felt tense, his muscles unwilling to unlock, knowing another hard slog was around the corner. He could see the tower, looming ahead of them. Ivory Tower had its own monorail station. At least _that_ part was easy. But who knew how many unholy things now occupied the tower? Jared considered making small talk with Megan, but it was too quiet in the car.

He opted to remained seated and silent for the remainder of the journey.

When the monorail car began pulling into the station, everyone was standing, armed and ready. Good thing, too. The station was full to bursting with zombies.

"Remember people, headshots! And don't let them get too close!" Scott called. There were two doors. The survivors, now numbering to ten, divided and occupied both entryways. The doors opened. Ten weapons spoke.

The next several minutes were filled with nothing more than flying blood, gun smoke, bullets and the vicious roaring of the undead. Jared kept his pistol tight clenched between two hands, making quick and bloody work of anything that made it close to his field of vision. He burned through four magazines before the flow of pallid flesh eventually ceased. As the last zombie fell, Scott was quick to get the survivors moving.

"Let's move it out, Marines!"

Pushing through the sea of corpses they'd made, the survivors hurried across the station towards the main entrance to the tower. They cleared out the lobby of a few stragglers that had been left behind, and then Scott set the pair of surviving technicians to work on hacking into the tower's internal network. Several minutes passed in wretched silence, the Marines keeping watch. Eventually, one of the techs straightened up.

"Got it, and you're not going to like it," he said. Scott sighed and came to stand next to him. His frown deepened with each passing moment as he studied what the techs had to show him. With a brooding but determined face, he spun it for the others quick.

"Alright...we can get to the top of the tower. It's just going to be a hell of a run. We'll need to get to three different elevators, the only ones left working, to make the majority of the trip, then take stairs for the last six levels to get roof access."

As they set out, making for the first elevator, Scott tried to get in contact with the men manning the top of the tower. Everyone could hear the conversation over the open channel.

"Paul, we're at the base of the tower, we should be up in no more than twenty minutes."

_"__You'd better make it faster, we've only got two Pelicans left and we're being overrun. There's another group of survivors ahead of you. Link up with them if you can, but, please hurry."_

"Roger that."

They pressed on, exiting the lobby and making their way through a large, open area littered with fountains and expensive-looking sculptures and shops and stalls. A miniature community. The way to the first elevator was made easily, just a light cluster of zombies were all that impeded their progress. The Marines made quick work of the groaning undead, headshots all around. They did, however, have to make the trip up in two goes.

Jared waited around while Scott, Stanton, Marshall, Nash and one of the other three surviving Marines he'd never learned the name of took the lift up. The silence passed uncomfortably, the technicians fiddling with their weapons. After what felt like ages, the elevator finally came back down. The five squeezed themselves in and rode it up after Scott radioed down all clear. As soon as Jared stepped off the lift, he could feel something wrong.

Scott had said all clear, and, technically, it was. A lengthy corridor that wrapped around this floor of the building, awaited his inspection. For the most part, it was empty. Void, save for a few lingering corpses. Dead-dead, not of the still walking around variety. Jared slowly walked across the hall, to a floor-to-ceiling window. They were very high up now, at least halfway, on the fifty-third floor. He had a great view of the city.

"Jesus," he whispered, staring at the burning metropolis. How many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds maybe, were dead now? Xerxes was an isolated, distant world, but there were still a fair amount of people on its surface. Rousing himself from his silent reverie, Jared turned back to the corridor. Something was wrong with it.

"Do you feel that?" he asked quietly. Scott nodded.

"I do. Creepers."

"Watch the vents."

They set off. Their task was simple: work their way around the winding corridor to the next elevator. The group of ten set off, hurrying in a single file, spread out as not to cluster up. The first of three corridors was easy, but the tension built. As they rounded the corner, Jared spotted crimson eyes staring at him from an overhead ventilation shaft. He sighted his shotgun and fired. The vent grate blew out and everyone raised their weapons.

Something shrieked and a pale arm, ending in long, jagged claws, hung from the open grate.

"Nice shot," Megan murmured. Scott called for everyone to pick up the pace. Rightly so, all the vents began to rattle as they ran by. The Marines began opening fire, blasting off vent grates as they ran, rarely hitting anything.

The Creepers were on the prowl. They turned the final corner, coming to the last corridor, and rushed it. Jared could see the elevator. Abruptly, one of the ventilation grates overhead burst open and a Creeper dropped down onto the back of one of the two remaining technicians. He began screaming, his voice piercing the still air of the corridor, and blood flew as the beast tore into him. The others, knowing he was dead and gone, converged fire on the pair. The Creeper was blasted away, the technician was already dead.

Scott put a bullet in his head just to be sure, then hurried on. As they came within spitting range of the elevator, another vent grate burst open. Jared was fast this time, faster than the Creeper. As it leaped through the air, he aimed and fired. The intended target, Stanton, ducked as the body flew towards him. It hit the wall behind him, headless, and collapsed to the floor. Scott reached the lift first, hit the access button, then stared in as the doors opened. It was empty. More ventilation grates were rattling as they began to fill the lift.

Stanton went first, then Nash and Marshall. Jared and Megan followed. Scott stayed behind with the remaining technician and three Marines still alive.

"Hurry," he said, as if they could make the lift go any faster, as the doors closed. They rode it up in quiet desperation, ready for anything. The doors slid open to reveal another corridor. They piled out and secured the area, hurriedly sending the lift back down. The way was clear. Several moments passed as they waited for Scott to make it up. When the lift opened, there were only two people aboard. Scott, and one Marine, who's bloody nametag Jared finally read. Wells. They were down to seven now. Scott silently led them on.

The next several moments were a repeat of what had just happened, only with a lot less Creepers and dying. They hurried on, only having to take down a few zombies before making it to the final elevator. The survivors rode it up in another two trips, then made a beeline for the stairwell that would take them on the last leg of their journey. As they began hurrying up the steps, Scott attempted to get into contact with the others.

He couldn't raise them.

Jared began to feel cold inside with worry as they rushed up the steps, despite how much he was sweating. Scott eventually fell silent, giving up radio contact, and the survivors hurried on in silence. As they finally came to the roof access, they burst through the door and came out onto the roof, above the chaos below them, above the secondary atmosphere of smog and ash and smoke Jackson had grown.

And they saw.

The roof was littered with corpses, some of them still up and moving. In the distance, a pair of Pelicans were making their way quickly away from the tower, into the air. Scott opened a channel and began roaring at them while the others put down the surviving zombies. He fell silent, however, as one of the Pelicans suddenly began heading straight down, back into the city, at a very steep angle. It disappeared from sight, beneath the smog.

The other continued silently on, glinting in the fading sunlight. As the last zombie was put down, and silence reigned whole, Jared finally asked,

"Now what, Staff Sergeant?"

"I don't know, Corporal," Scott admitted. He walked off, a little away from the group, and began to work his radio. Jared walked to the edge of the building, staring down over the city. Megan came to stand beside him.

"How many girlfriends have you had?" she asked after a few silent moments. Jared considered lying to her, but ultimately decided against it.

"Four." Megan considered this.

"How many women have you had sex with?"

"Six."

"Including me?" He nodded. "Impressive," she said, honest awe in her voice. He shrugged.

"Not really, that's not very many," he replied.

"That's my point. That's really impressive. Given the nature of not only what type of person it takes to be a soldier but also the fact that we just got done staring down the barrel of extinction, which tends to send most people into terminal sexual overdrive, most people tend to have a lot of sexual partners. And given your skill and looks, I can't imagine it was from a lack of willing partners." Jared chuckled.

"Skill and looks?"

"You're good at sex. And you're a cutie." Megan grinned and reached into her pocket, pulling out a white pack of cigarettes. Yeheyuan was stenciled in stylized red text on the size, intermixed with several symbols he recognized as Asian.

"You smoke?" she asked, pulling one out and offering it to him. Jared shook his head. Megan shrugged and put it in her mouth, then replaced the pack and came back out with a Zippo. It was black with a silver crosshair on the side, the center of which was crimson. She lit the cig, took a long drag off of it and let out a perfect smoke ring.

"So there are _other_ things you can do with that mouth of yours," Jared said. Megan smirked and replaced the lighter.

"There's a lot I can do, Corporal. Don't think I showed you my entire bag of party tricks last night. That was just the tip of the iceberg."

"So long as you don't ever make me play 'just the tip'." Megan's grin widened.

"Someone's pulled that on you before?" Jared sighed in frustration.

"First girlfriend...maybe I'll tell you about her sometime." Their conversation was interrupted by Scott calling everyone back together. They all converged on his position in the center of the rooftop, amidst the corpses and black blood.

"What's up, Staff Sergeant?" Stanton asked. Scott looked hopeful.

"I managed to pick up another transmission. There's a second evac point, down near some docks. We can take the monorail there and they're willing to wait for us. They have a secure location and some spare Pelicans," he explained. Everyone was tired, but happy. Another shot at survival, and getting off this hellworld.

"Marines, we are leaving!"

The trip back down through the Ivory Tower was much easier than the trip up it. The way was as clear as they had left it, and everyone managed to live long enough to get back to the station and pile into the monorail. The trip was laden with sullen silence. After tearing ass to get up the tower and finding their ride gone AWOL, Jared found his morale to be severely lacking. He realized how easy he'd had it before this.

And then there was Megan. Contrary to everything else, she was a pleasant morale booster. She kept things wonderfully uncomplicated. Something the other women he'd been with had been not skilled enough or too good at. He watched Jackson rushing by, not really seeing it now, considering things he supposed most people in situations like this considered. What to do after it was all over, provided he'd live long enough to see it end.

Xerxes had been long and boring. And, chances were, it wasn't going to recover from this assault of the living dead. So what then? Maybe he should quit the UNSC. Even a few months ago the idea would have seemed insane to him. But it was clear that there were a lot of people who didn't want to see him get promoted, would rather see him rot in a place like Xerxes. Should he survive this madness, would he just be sent to another Xerxes? Some backwater outpost where a killer like him would go mad from inactivity?

There was mercenary work out there. Maybe he could get his own ship, hunt Covenant remnants...surely there were others like him. Jared glanced up as he realized the monorail was pulling into the station. Everyone stood and readied themselves, coming out of the car firing on the lingering zombies in the station. Once the area was secure, Scott spent a few moments conferring with the survivors, then consulting a holographic map of the area through the database in his helmet, finding their location and tagging them with a nav marker.

Jared saw the upside-down triangle appear over his right eye. A hundred meters. Not so bad. They could make it without _too_ much struggle. He hoped. Scott led the way, the others hurrying to keep up as he plunged into a network of warehousing, dockyards and vacant lots. Distantly, they could hear the sound of gunshots and a few explosions. The zombies they came across seemed to be making for the nav marker, too.

The group put them down with practiced ease, sighting the stumbling, stalking things for headshots. The slog wasn't as hard as Jared thought it would be, until they reached the evacuation site. It was little more than a pair of Pelicans and a group of survivors firing at an enormous crowd of zombies from behind a thrown-together barrier of crates, sandbags and larger pieces of moving equipment.

Jared, Megan and the others immediately began to open fire, trying to take the heat off the evac point. The zombies, with a few Speed Demons and Creepers mixed in, now found themselves caught in one hell of a field of fire. They attempted to split off, a contingent of them breaking away and making for this new threat. Creepers and Speed Demons were targeted first, as they were by far more deadly than the horde of undead.

Black blood flew. Minutes passed, seconds counted in bullets and blood. As they continued to mow down the dozens of undead, one of the Pelicans took off, flying up and away in the smog hovering over the city. Jared felt his stomach turn to stone, but the final Pelican remained. He tried to pick up the pace, targeting and firing as quickly as his fingers and reflexes would allow. And when the firing and the groaning finally ceased, the Pelican was still there. Hurriedly, the survivors came into the small encampment.

There weren't very many left at the evac point. Just three of them, all Marines. The Pelican waited for them, a glorious thing that seemed to shine despite the fading gray light. Night was coming to them. It would be there soon.

"Staff Sergeant Scott?" one of the Marines asked. Scott nodded. "Privates Smith, Starck and Cooper, reporting for duty," the man, Smith, said with a tired smile.

"Looks like you got a ride for us there, Private," Scott replied, nodding to the Pelican.

"Yes, sir. Fueled and ready to go. We just sent our second-to-last bird to air. Let's get the hell out of here," Smith replied. No one felt the need to argue, and they all hurried up to the ship. The group of survivors filed up the cargo ramp and strapped themselves in while Smith, apparently also a pilot, moved forward towards the cockpit. The cargo ramp closed and Jared settled in next to Megan, taking her hand in his.

It occurred to him, after a moment, that they hadn't taken off yet. Frowning, he glanced forward. Smith appeared to be in animated conversation with someone over the radio.

"You say..._what_? They've got _what_ locked on? Well, talk to them!...You're _kidding_ me! Justin? Justin, are you still there!? _Shit_!"

"What's going on in their, Smith?" Scott asked after a moment of silence, broken only by the engines. Smith said nothing, instead opting to turn the engines off. Finally, he stood and came back, a heavy look onto his face.

"There's an orbital blockade," he reported grimly. "They're shooting down anyone who makes it offplanet."

"On who's authority?!" Scott cried, shooting to his feet.

"No idea. They didn't say." A moment of silence passed.

"What now, Staff Sergeant?" Stanton asked finally.

"I really don't know this time, Corporal."


	10. Revelation

**Chapter 10  
><strong>_-Revelation-_

They found refuge in a tall building meant to oversee control of that particular section of the dockyards. After securing the interior and locking all the doors, the survivors began tending to their wounds, grabbing a bite to eat and brooding bleakly on their future. Which was, Jared felt, measured in hours.

He sat on the floor of a storage room, the door locked, with his pants around his ankles and considered asking Megan for a Yeheyuan. She was laying against him, her pants up but still unbelted, resting her head on his shoulder, smoking quietly.

"Good quickie," she murmured sleepily. Jared chuckled, quietly. Night had found them. His stomach rumbled, causing Megan's to do so in turn.

"I agree," Jared replied, reaching for his discarded duffel bag. He grabbed it and zipped it open, fishing out a pair of MREs and a canteen he'd filled with soda before he'd left Rat's Nest. The two of them tore open the MREs and ate quietly, passing the canteen back and forth. They emptied the MREs and drained the canteen in a few moments.

"I'm tired," Megan said after several more moments of silence. Jared realized that he'd begun nodding off.

"This is no place to sleep," he grunted in reply, but a yawn interrupted the end of his sentence. A second one from Megan quickly followed.

"Hell with it," she said. "We're mud-sloggers. We can sleep anywhere." Jared laughed briefly, then pulled his pants up and set the duffel bag up against the wall like a pillow. They both laid down on the cold, hard floor of the storage room on their sides, Jared pressed tightly up against Megan's back. He threw an arm over her and knew that she was right.

They fell asleep almost immediately.

When Jared woke up, it was to his radio. Someone was talking over it. The voice sounded excited. Feeling very groggy and now heavy some aches and pains, Jared groaned and sat up. His head ached dully and his vision was blurry. He rubbed his eyes and grabbed for his helmet, fitting it into place.

"What's going on?" he mumbled.

_"__West, where the hell you been?"_ Scott sounded vaguely agitated.

"Caught some Zs, sir. Megan's with me, uh, Corporal Jones," he replied. Megan stirred, rolling over and looking up at him silently.

_"__Well come out to the control room atop the tower. Got some _very_ interesting news."_ Scott wouldn't say anything further, so Jared gave up and slowly rose to his feet. He popped his back, neck and shoulders, then rooted around in the duffel bag for painkillers. By the time Megan was on her feet, he had a bottle out and dry-swallowed a trio of small white tablets. He passed the bottle to her and watched her do the same.

"What's up?" she asked, pulling out a fresh cigarette and lighting up.

"Scott's excited about something, won't say what, so it might be good."

They left the storage room, making their way slowly through the control tower, feeling the fast-acting painkillers go to work and soothe the various small aches that assaulted their bodies. They rode an elevator through the steel confines of the tower and found everyone else gathered in the control room, standing before a fiery-eyed Staff Sergeant Scott.

"Ah, you're all here! I've got some _very_ interesting news," he said, grinning grimly. Jared and Megan came to stand with the others. Scott continued. "I was scanning radio transmissions, hunting for other survivors, when I happened across a stray transmission. I listened in and it turns out that there's someone _studying_ the effect of the undead on us. How we react to it. I traced the signal. It's coming from an island not far from here...and we happen to have this Pelican on hand. And it's not like we've got anything else to do, so I figured it's high time we go and have a chat with whoever the hell is watching us die."

Scott was right, it _was_ very interesting. There was a general growl of agreement from the others, and they all began shuffling to the door. After a brief interim of fifteen minutes, with everyone gathering up supplies and checking out guns, they left the safety of the control tower. The vacant lot they had once made a last stand in was still mostly vacant, only a few zombies had wandered in. They were put down with quick proficiency.

The ten survivors loaded up into the Pelican. Smith ran through the warm-up procedures and had them off the ground in five minutes. They flew across the midnight water in silence. Jared found that he and Megan had slept for little more than three hours. It was pushing two in the morning now. He was sleepy, but focused.

Jared found himself suddenly, abruptly, angry. The past few days felt muted and pale by comparison. Jared was a reserved man by nature, quiet and laid back, at least generally. And the sudden appearance of the undead had shocked him perhaps much more than he realized. He hadn't felt much since waking from that coma, save some fear and a fair amount of lust after Megan, but even that paled in comparison to the sudden anger that shot through him. _Millions_ of people were dead. Worse than dead, really.

And it seemed very highly probably that someone had _caused_ it. Someone _human_. Jared tried not to jump to conclusions. It was always possible that there was a reasonable explanation for this. But...he had too little faith in his own species, to be honest.

Jared made himself sit back and wait as the Pelican came closer to the island.

* * *

><p>Rain seemed to follow Jared around, at this point.<p>

It had started up again by the time they found the island. It was small, a mostly rocky thing dotted with the occasional cluster of trees. A quick scan of the area reveal nothing, save for a minor anomaly near the center of the island. They landed after scanning for frequencies again and finding that the waves had gone dead.

The Pelican landed and the survivors piled out. Smith and Cooper stayed with the ship, just in case. There had been nothing to indicate zombie activity. After several moments of rain-slicked searching, Jared found the 'anomaly'. It was a hatch hidden amongst some bushes. He popped it open and peered down inside, finding a short vertical shaft that led to a room connected to an elevator. Everyone climbed down and piled into the elevator.

Scott hit the down button, and they waited as they plunged into the earth. Time passed in morbid silence. After what felt like an eternity, the lift finally came to a halt. It opened up to an empty steel room, lit in painfully bright light. A pair of corridors led away from the room, showing only more metal and luminescence.

The squad of survivors split up and headed out, making their way through the facility. Before long, they managed to find a terminal and hack into it, discovering that the place wasn't very big at all. It was hardly more than some living quarters built around a powerful communications and monitoring array. They searched the living quarters, finding them empty. They searched the small infirmary and storage area, finding them both equally empty. There were no spent shell casings, no bullet holes, no blood stains or bodies.

The zombie apocalypse hadn't visited this cryptic place, built beneath the earth. They finally found what they were looking for in the main communications bay. Jared and Scott more or less kicked the door in and found a pair of technicians in black jumpsuits seated in front of an enormous bank of monitors and powerful looking equipment. They turned around, jumping and yelling in surprise, and found themselves looking down several barrels.

"Why weren't you watching the internal security cameras?" one of them murmured to the other.

"Why weren't _you_? You moron," the other grumbled.

"Shut it," Scott growled. He lowered his weapon and walked closer. "I have some questions. Answer them truthfully, you'll live. Lie to me, I have _no_ qualms about killing you. Got it?" Both men nodded. Jared was staring at something, an insignia they both bore on their chests.

"You're..._ONI_?" he asked. Everyone glanced at Jared, then at the two technicians.

"Ah...yes."

"I don't recognize that branch insignia," Scott said, poking one of them in the chest with the barrel of pistol.

"Ah, we're Black Ops," the man murmured.

"Never heard of it. You mean Section Zero?" Scott replied. The tech shook his head.

"No. We're above Section Zero," he said. The other nudged him.

"So what part of 'don't talk to the locals' didn't you get?" he asked. Without taking his eyes off the first man, Scott turned his pistol and shot the second man in the foot. The tech began screaming. Scott pointed the barrel at his face. He passed out.

"Stanton, get that, would you?" he asked.

"On it, Staff Sergeant."

"Now, what was that?" Scott asked. The first tech's eyes were wide and he had paled several shades.

"Uh, uh, uh...Black Ops. We're above Section Zero. Ah, we work on our own authority," he said.

"Keep talking."

"Well, ah, see, it's all compartmentalized. So, I mean, I couldn't tell you anything beyond this particular operation."

"Then tell me about this particular operation."

"Alright, well...a few months ago, from what I've heard, a dig team on another planet managed to crack a Forerunner intergalactic map of facilities. One such facility was located here, near the south pole of Xerxes. We came in and dug into the facility and found a unique strain of the Flood. It was a lot different than traditional Flood, as it worked on a cellular level and required no Infection Form. As you can see, it operates like traditional zombies do. See? So, we...kinda...I mean to say, that is, _they_ infected...Xerxes." Silence fell and played out uncomfortably.

"_Why_?" Megan managed finally.

"Black Ops felt it necessary to test the effects of the Undead Plague on a human colonized world."

"What possible reason would they need to know that for?" Scott asked.

"Well, if you'll recall, rebels and insurgents were a big problem not too long ago, even during the war. And, well, with the absence of the war, it might be possible for rebels to become a problem again..."

"So your bosses thought it necessary to kill millions of people to...what? Save us from rebels? Are you _serious_?"

"Hey! I'm just a comms tech! I was just listening in on radio frequencies and monitoring the death count!" the tech cried. Scott turned around, away from the man for a moment, thinking. Stanton straightened up from his work on the other tech, having patched his gunshot wound.

"What now, Staff Sergeant?" he asked.

"I've got an idea or two..." Scott turned back around, raised the pistol and began to grill the technician for information. Half an hour passed. When the technician ran out of things to say, Scott knocked him out cold and spent a while hacking into the main database. Finally, he had enough information to be satisfied. He had the others gather up the pair of unconscious comms techs and bring them back to the Pelican with them.

"So, what's the plan?" Jared asked as they settled into their seats once more. Both darkly clad men were in a heap on the ground in between the rows of seats.

"We need two things, Corporal. A way past that orbital blockade and definite proof of this crackpot conspiracy. We should find both of them at that south pole installation," Scott explained.

"And that's where we're going now?"

"Not quite. First, we need to make a little detour."

They stopped back by Jackson, briefly, and pushed both men out of the Pelican and onto the top of an empty warehouse in the dockyards. Feeling reasonably sporting, Scott left the unconscious men, soon to wake up, a pair of pistols and a few spare clips.

Then they were off, making good time towards the frozen southern arctic of Xerxes.


	11. Blackout

**Chapter 11  
><strong>_-Blackout-_

The ride down was mostly quiet. Jared sat with Megan in one corner of the Pelican, nodding in and out of sleep. The others were all spread around the interior, minus Scott, who sat up front with the pilot and mulled over their current predicament. Jared considered what he knew about Black Ops, what had been learned from the pair of techs. He had never heard of Black Ops before, not even in whispers or the vaguest rumors.

Which said something about the secrecy of the branch. He wondered if even those in ONI knew about it. Perhaps those in the top tiers might, but...still. It was creepier than hell to think of a group with this much power. Jared thought it was no coincidence that this kind of thing was happening right after the end of the war. Which begged the question: how much were they getting away with _during_ the war? It was a lot easier to hide a cover up with a galactic conflict on.

"Wake up, people, we're within scanning range and things might be looking up for us." Scott came back from the cockpit, rousing the group. "It looks like there's two structures: one is massive and perched at the end of an ice trench, well fortified and is Forerunner in nature. But there's a complex of natural tunnels and caves in the area, so we're going to try and exploit that as an alternate way in. The second structure is human, built into the edge of an icy cliff sheer, probably a command or research station.

"We're going to split into two groups, one larger, one smaller. Stanton, you're going to head up the smaller team that takes the human center. West, Jones and Nash will go with you. Figure out what's up and keep in contact. Everyone else, with me. We'll hit the caves. Now, it _looks_ like they're in a state of panic down there, so that might give us the edge. Any questions?"

There were none.

The Pelican droned on, cutting through the bitterly cold winds and swirling snow.

* * *

><p>Jared shivered miserably as he looked around the desolate wasteland. In the far distance, to his right, he could see the high-powered beams of the Human work-lights and the vague outline of the vast Forerunner structure. Ahead of him was a small structure guarded by, well, <em>now<em> it was guarded by a pair of darkly clad corpses.

"Clear?" Jared asked. Stanton had disappeared behind the structure, scouting the area.

"Clear," the Corporal replied, reappearing. "It was just these two idiots. And...it looks like this elevator is the only way in. Which sucks." Jared had to agree. They could _easily_ lock the elevator down and trap them in there.

"Oh well," Megan replied, making for the lift. Jared glanced at Stanton, then shrugged and followed her. She hit the call button and when the doors opened, revealing a bleak, empty square of metal, they piled in. Jared hit the down button and waited impatiently as the doors slid close and the descended into the ice.

"So you've never heard of Black Ops?" Jared asked. Stanton shook his head.

"Nope, nothing. Not a _thing_. Which is creepy. I mean, it's a generic enough name, but I always thought it just meant that the operation itself was shady, not a branch. But a self-governed, God-clearance branch of ONI that answers to no one and does whatever it takes to 'protect' humanity? Sounds almost worse than the Covenant or the Flood. I mean, at least with those two it was straightforward, you know?"

"Yes, I know exactly what you mean."

The elevator doors dinged open. There was a single man walking down a short corridor towards it, a pistol held loosely in hand, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He stopped dead and stared at the four of them. His mouth opened. The cigarette fell out. He began to raise the pistol. And that's about as far as he made it.

Two guns spoke. Bloody holes blossomed on his uniform and he flew backwards. Jared and Stanton, the nearest to the front, dropped to one knee. Everyone kept their weapons raised. A few seconds passed. The elevator doors began to close and Jared hit the open button. Someone else ran out into the corridor. He, too, was taken down in a hail of bullets. More time passed. The door tried to close twice more before they decided it was clear.

"Cover me," Stanton murmured, creeping forward. He scooped up the cigarette and pulled a lighter from the dead man's pocket, then stuck it in his mouth and lit up.

"Oh, _man_ that's good."

"Can we keep going now?" Nash asked. Stanton chuckled.

"Yeah, let's go."

They proceeded down the corridor, coming to a branch that forked away, both corridors lined with doorways. They paused, securing the area, then Stanton called up Scott.

"What's the word, Staff Sergeant?"

_"__We've landed and we've just entered the cave complex. No resistance so far. How about on your end?"_ Stanton updated him. _"Alright, keep it up. Out."_

They began making their way through the rooms, cleaning them out as they went. They found storage chambers, break rooms, restrooms and offices. Each was cleared, most of them empty. Any time they found a Black Ops operative, they put a round through their head and moved on. After another twenty minutes, they had found the last area yet explored, hidden behind a pair of double doors.

Stanton took the time to call up Scott again.

"How goes it?"

_"__Not good. We've run into some zombies and found evidence of skirmishes down here. Dead Black Ops soldiers. Nothing serious, though. But we've just come to what appears to be an entrance into the facility. It's locked down though. We're looking for another way in...but if you could find a way to unlock it, it'd be really helpful."_

"On it, Staff Sergeant."

They burst into the room beyond the double doors...and found it empty. A panoramic view awaited them in the form of a ring of windows overlooking a desolate, half-frozen sea and dark, distant mountains. Banks of monitors and pieces of computing equipment occupied most of the room. The place was abandoned, but functional.

"Man, where _is_ everyone?" Nash murmured.

"Maybe they headed back to the main facility...let's just crack the internal database wide open and see what we can find," Stanton replied. They all split up, each taking a separate terminal, and began hunting through the network. It didn't take long to get disappointed.

"Looks like they were in the process of clearing this place out," Megan murmured.

"Yeah, my terminal's empty," Jared replied.

"Well, we can at least help Scott and the others. I've found some lockdown protocols for the secondary entrance to the primary base. Unlocking now," Stanton stated. After making sure there was nothing left, they began to head back to the elevator and got into contact with Scott's squad.

"How's it looking, Staff Sergeant?"

_"__Good. We're through the locked down door, but encountering heavier resistance. No Black Ops survivors, just zombies and a few Creepers. Watch your back when you head into the caves. We'll press on to the main facility and secure the area, then wait for you."_

"Roger that, Staff Sergeant. On the way."

They rode the elevator back up to the shrieking winds and forsaken icy landscape, then began to hustle it to the cave complex. The trip was made in mute contemplation. Black Ops. The codename was a flaring warning signal in Jared's mind. There was something almost inherently evil about the idea. An ungovernable, highly-focused group of men and women whose sole purpose was to 'protect humanity in any method they saw fit'.

He'd heard of such people. Sacrifice the few for the many. It was a call he'd had to make a few times. But this...this was insanity. Killing millions as part of an experimental test run on a new strain of the Flood?

They had to be stopped. There was no question.

The quartet found the entrance to the complex of caves and plunged into their icy depths. The way was lit by a string of halogen work-lights hung along the top of the tunnel. They progressed in silence, occasionally finding a corpse or signs of attack. Jared kept anticipating some kind of attack, some remnant of the undead forces, but it seemed that Scott had cleared the way. They reached the entryway and passed through it without incident.

The Forerunner facility was mostly made up of enormous rooms and corridors, sprinkled through with glowing light-based technology. Signs of conflict were everywhere. Bullet holes, spent shell casings, splatters of blood both red and black, corpses...the fight had come and gone already. Jared's group found Scott and the others gathered around a large, flat lift that was prepared to descend into the ground.

"Anyone home?" Stanton asked. Scott shook his head.

"Nope. Nothing but a few zombies. Black Ops is on the run, it seems. We found a few computers, they were almost totally cleaned out. From what we've discovered this place is a topside security lock for an underground cold storage laboratory where they stored the unique strain of Flood. There's another elevator on the far side of the lab, which leads up to where they've set up a starport. I imagine they're fleeing from there. We're going to cut through the labs and into that starport. Any questions?"

There was only one.

"Where's Wells?" Stanton asked. Scott's face darkened.

"We...lost him, in the caves. Creeper jumped him. Never had a chance." A moment of silence passed between the group, then they climbed aboard the lift. Without a word, Scott hit the light pad and they plunged into the icy depths.


	12. Cold Storage

**Chapter 12  
><strong>_-Cold Storage-_

The lift deposited them in a chillsome, high-tech room. The immediate area was clear, void of anything alive or undead. All the team had for company as they stepped off the lift and inspected the area was a lonely corpse in the corner: a Black Ops solider missing a head. The area was covered in glowing light-based technology. Fitted in at irregular intervals were human terminals, an uneasy blend of technologies.

"Stanton, see if you can get into their local network. Find me a map," Scott said.

"On it, Staff Sergeant." The Corporal slung his rifle and made for the nearest intact terminal. Jared looked around uneasily. There was something wrong with the underground Forerunner facility, almost as if the walls themselves permeated some kind of ancient evil. He shuddered.

"Anyone ever figure out where the Flood actually came from?" he asked quietly.

"Not as far as I know. Not even the Forerunners did, I think," Scott replied. Stanton toiled on in silence. Jared and Megan made for the only door in the room. It slid open as they approached, causing them to snap their guns up. A blood-streaked hallway awaited their inspection. It went in for several meters, then turned left.

"Hallway clear," Jared called. More minutes passed in bloody silence before Stanton broke it, calling out to the others.

"Got it!" Everyone gathered around the terminal, staring at the screen. A holographic 3D map of the Cold Storage Labs had been displayed. It was big and full of rooms that flashed red.

"What do those red zones mean?" Nash asked quietly, perhaps afraid of the answer he was going to receive.

"I think...it indicates rooms in which the specimens have broken out," Stanton replied after another few moments of pensive searching. Nash's features fell. So did many of the others.

"Wonderful," Jared grumbled.

"There, I see the other side. An elevator that leads to the starport, and...look there," Scott said, pointing. "That's the nerve center of this whole place, the data stacks. We're going to hit that first and download everything they have there. That'll be our evidence," he said grimly.

They mapped out the route there in their head. It would take them through several of the red zones. Jared wondered what horrors awaited them in the cold, dark depths of the earth.

"Alright...let's move out," Scott called.

Everyone made sure their weapons were ready and their heads were clear. They made their way down the blood-stained corridor, peering cautiously around the corner. Another length of vile corridor ending in a doorway. They hurried down it, securing the room beyond. For the first five minutes, they proceeded like this. Silence swallowed their noises, a great void of sound. It muffled their footsteps, turned their strained sentences into whispers. The only white noise to be heard was the soft hum of power and the occasional whisper of air.

They found more blood, and more bodies. Bullet holes marred the walls, the floor, the ceiling...blood was everywhere. It pooled on the floor, black and red. It ran down the walls in thick rivulets and dripped from the ceiling. They made their way through the blood that almost seemed a mist upon the air. The silence continued to engorge, swallowing them. They progressed down one tension-laden corridor, lit only by some ambient white light that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere that was natural to all Forerunner installations, to the next and the one beyond it. Cold Storage was a networked maze of corridors and mysterious rooms.

They came across cumbersome Human technology forced in among the ancient, smooth, efficient Forerunner tech. Computer terminals, desks and chairs and weapons lockers. They scavenged guns and ammo where they could. Occasionally, a loud scream or gunshot or long, low howl would filter back to them.

The tension continued to mount as they progressed into the command control room, a broad, domed area housing a ring of technology in the center. It looked to have been hit particularly hard, Forerunner doors broken in and sparking. The consoles were mostly dead and dark, or flickering and rolling, showing random information.

"Secure the area. Nash, Stanton, get on those consoles. Get the information," Scott barked. They nodded and headed into the ring of consoles while the others spread out throughout the room. It was large, the farthest parts of it mired in a deep nest of shadows that wavered and trembled beneath their weapon-mounted flashlights.

"Looks clear!" Smith called. Jared swept his own pale beam of light across the dark recesses of the room, then slowly up. Something felt...wrong. They should have seen some kind of resistance so far. He supposed it could be possible that the Black Ops and the undead had all killed each other...but it didn't feel entirely right.

"Look," Megan whispered, suddenly beside him, making him jump. "Up there." Jared looked up, and felt cold. There were holes, possibly vents of some kind but he wasn't sure. This place seemed too advanced for large, bulky vents. What were they for? He supposed it didn't matter, because they were more than likely going to be used for something far more unpleasant. He moved closer to Scott and pointed it out.

"Aw, shit," the Staff Sergeant grumbled, staring up at them. "Keep an eye on those openings!" he called, pointing them out to the others. After a moment, he moved to join the other two in the ring of consoles.

"How's it coming?"

"Slow," Nash replied unhappily. "Most of this is shot to shit. It'll take a little while."

"Well, keep on it. Fast as you can."

"Yes, Staff Sergeant."

Seconds continued to tick by in morose silence. The tension continued to build as the pair worked as quickly as they could, sorting through the ruined database. The others began to fidget nervously. It was after a few moments that the noises came. Soft, chilling chattering sounds floated down to them from above.

"Creepers," someone growled. Jared found himself agreeing, keeping his rifle tight to his shoulder, readying himself for the eventual assault. Five more minutes passed and, just as he was beginning to relax, he saw a pair of crimson eyes staring at him from above.

"Incoming!" he screamed right as the first volley of Creepers came shrieking from above. He fired, putting a three-round burst right through the skull of the first one, and then chaos ensued. Everything was a maddened frenzy of furious movement as more than a dozen Creepers descended from above like shrieking archangels.

Jared kept up his rate of fire, trying to track them as they flew through the air, managing to tag another one in the gut before they were all on the ground and moving in a frenzy. Around him, the others shouting and screaming in rage and furious terror. Bullets flew everywhere. So did the blood. Red and black fused as it splashed across the environment. One Creeper went down, then two. Jared fired as rapidly as he could, abandoning the battle rifle as soon as it was dry and ripping his pistol from its holster. He emptied that magazine, bringing down another two.

Someone screamed in a cry that was more of pain than rage. Jared reloaded quickly, turned, fired, dropped another one that was nearly upon him with a bullet through the left eye that caused the ugly thing's skull to vaporize in a plume of black gore. As he reloaded once more, the last shot was fired, and the final Creeper was downed. After a few moments of silence, Scott spoke up.

"Who's not dead?"

Both Smith and Starck, two of the Marines they'd picked up from Longshore, failed to report in. They were found, after a few moments of searching, to be amongst the corpses, torn nearly to shreds by the Creepers.

"Christ..." Jared whispered harshly.

"Bad news," Stanton said glumly. "The information we're looking for isn't here. They scrambled the database pretty bad, and whatever was left behind was lost in the attack. The only thing we found for sure is that they have a space station in orbit, that's where they're going." Scott frowned, looking grimmer than ever. He seemed to stare at a puddle of fresh gore on the ground, considering the situation. Finally, he straightened up.

"Alright, so we get to the starport, hijack a ship and get onboard that space station and find the data. Everyone ready?"

They were.

Unwilling to be attacked a second time, the crew hurried out of the command center, making for the far door and pushing through it quickly. They made their way as quickly and quietly as they could through the bloodied corridors.

Somehow, they managed to locate the elevator without running into another battle. The elevator was identical to the original one and for one crazy second Jared was terrified that they'd been turned around. But when they rose up and exited the small structure it brought them to, he found a different view waiting for him.

Everything was still wreathed in snow and ice and gray fog, but the view was of the starport in a fury of activity. Dozens of Black Ops personnel were frantically loading several large cargo ships with all manner of equipment and crates. The perimeter of the starport was constantly being tested by waves of undead, all four types of them. At least all four that Jared had seen so far. He wondered if there were more.

"There," Scott whispered, pointing to a nearby cargo ship, the back ramp open and unprotected for the moment. "Hurry."

Quickly, and quietly, they slipped onboard the cargo ship.


	13. Orbital Sonata

**Chapter 13  
><strong>_-Orbital Sonata-_

They managed to find a back storage room filled with stacks of crates and hid among them as they waited for the cargo ship to take off. After making sure they were alone, they spread out across the broad cargo deck and hunted for a terminal of any kind. Scott wanted access to the ship's internal network.

By the time they found it and Stanton had gotten to work, attempting to discreetly infiltrate the network, the ship began to take off. Distantly, there were shouts, then gunshots, coming to their ears through the ventilation system. Then all was silent again.

"Are they on the ship?" Nash whispered fearfully.

"Must be. Maybe a few slipped through," Jared replied unhappily. They continued waiting in silence while the ship rattled subtly around them, breaking orbit of the planet. By the time the rattling had subsided, Stanton had managed to hack into the terminal. He rooted around in it while they no doubt made for the orbital space station.

"Aw, shit," he growled.

"What?" Scott and Jared were instantly at his side, staring at the display before him.

"They're shipping up specimens of the creatures down there, prepping them for cryonic storage on the space station and then to be brought...somewhere else, out-of-system," Stanton reported grimly.

"Can you bring up a map of the station?"

"Yeah, one minute." He toiled a few seconds longer, flashing through various displays and screens, before finally bringing up a holographic map of the station they were en route to.

"Stygian Station...figures. Alright, lemme think," Scott growled. Silence played out. Jared could see the man planning, his eyes flicking across the bright, green display. He had to admire the man. He could plan with the best of them, tossing together a workable game plan in almost no time flat. Scott straightened up.

"Gather round, boys and girls."

The plan was relatively simple. Most good plans were. The more things you had to do, the higher chance things had of screwing up. Even as it was, this plan was going to be tough to pull off and make it out alive. Jared would lead Stanton and Megan towards the command center by using the ventilation system while Scott would take Marshall, Nash and Cooper to the power center and sabotage it, causing a failure and releasing enough of the specimens to create a chaos. In the ensuing madness, the trio would get in, download the data and send out a distress call.

And then...they'd hope for the best. None of them were entirely sure what to do after that, except for regrouping and holing up, hoping that the undead and the Black Ops would kill each other. They couldn't hope to wrestle control of a ship with FLT capabilities away from Black Ops...Jared had to admit, it was grim.

But it was better than nothing.

They memorized the layout, ran through the plan in their heads and prayed for the best.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

><p>They slipped off the cargo ship with relative ease, the Black Ops soldiers had their hands full with the specimens. One would escape, every now and then, and gunshots would echo, followed by the slump of a body. They found an emergency escape hatch and slipped through, splitting up and making for their separate destinations.<p>

The way was dark and narrow and harrowing. The trio slipped into the ventilation system with too close of a call. A pair of patrolling soldiers nearly happened upon them as Stanton slipped in last, narrowly shutting the grate behind him. Their boots appeared a second later in front of the grate and everyone held tense, waiting to be discovered. But the boots never faced towards the grate, and the conversation wafting down between the two soldiers sounded uninterested, if tense. They were glad to be leaving.

Jared wondered if the Black Ops were pulling out of the system. It made sense. The situation below had become untenable and now it was time to collect their earnings and leave. Not yet. Not before he got the dirt on the Black Ops. He found himself wondering about how this all could have happened as he crawled through the vents, navigating their dark innards, like the intestinal tract of some great, metal beast.

ONI had always been shady, from his perspective. Any branch of the government or military that proclaimed itself as Intelligence _always_ did the shady deeds. There was always some story, some rumor, something pointing the finger at ONI, specifically Section Zero. There was some illegal experiment they were running, some back-hand deal. ONI Operatives were to be avoided like the plague and not trusted at all.

But even then, even if half the rumors were true, and Jared believe they were, more often than not, it could conceivably be argued that they were doing it for the good of Humanity. Because with the Covenant breathing down everyone's neck, threatening true genocide, desperate measures were called for.

But _this_? Something like this seemed beyond even Section Zero's grasp. Black Ops...who were they, really? Something rang hollow to Jared about Black Ops being tied to ONI. Something this gruesome, this grizzly, this unholy, appeared to be the work of a madman. Who was pulling the strings, who rested atop the pyramid?

Jared intended to find out. He realized he was making the decision as it formed in his head: he'd spend the rest of his life, if he had to, finding out who was behind this and putting a bullet in their head. Everything about this operation reeked of evil in its purest form. Whatever it took, he'd find them all. No matter what.

He came out of his thoughts as they neared the command center. They got irregular updates from the second squad. They were close to the power station. Everything was about ready to go. Jared settled in and waited, hiding in a ventilation duct that overlooked the whole command room. Several dozen techs in black jumpsuits operated various pieces of equipment, diligently staring into screens, maintaining and monitoring and investigating. There were only a handful of soldiers. If worse came to worse, Jared felt they could handle them.

While he waited, he regarded Megan in the very dim light of the ventilation duct. He'd gotten to know her some over their time spent Xerxes as it was torn to bloody shreds. She was one of the most compelling women he'd ever met, certainly. Very sure of herself and her skills, confident in a way that bordered on arrogant, but still, in her own way, vulnerable. He'd only seen hints and vague glimpses of that vulnerability, but it had enticed him.

When this was all over, if they both came out of it alive, he planned on getting to know her a lot better.

And having a lot more sex with her, of course.

She noticed him gazing at her and, as if she could suddenly hear his thoughts, smiled darkly at him. He suppressed a chuckle and tried to stay focused. That's when all the lights went out. For a second, just a second, there was a grim interval of pure silence. No power, no air, nothing. Then the confused shouts, the sounds of people stumbling into things, demanded questions and, finally, the click and hum of emergency power coming back on.

Everything was bathed in a pale glow, back-up lighting having flared into life. But it was less than half the strength of the original light. Another moment passed and, as the confused inquires began to fall silent and Jared and his group prepared to attack, the sounds of chaos came. Screaming, furious roaring, bullets and eruptions of grenades.

The soldiers surged towards the doors. Most of them disappeared out of them, along with a handful of the technicians. Jared, Megan and Stanton each had moved to a vent that overlooked the area. They pulled the vent grates aside and, on Jared's signal, began opening fire. They dropped the remaining soldiers and most of the technicians before they were forced to leave the relative safety of the vents to hunt down the others.

After a few more moments the deed was done: they were alone in the command center.

"We'll watch the door, hurry your ass up," Jared said.

"You got it," Stanton replied, hurrying for the nearest console. He sat and got to work. There were two ways into the command center. Jared took one, Megan took the other. They waited in rapt silence as the sounds of chaos rose and fell in audible waves. Jared called in for an update from Scott. The silence of an open channel mocked him. He tried again.

"Scott, what's going on? Are you there?" More silence. As Jared prepared to call out a third time, Scott's voice burst onto the air.

_"__Jared! I'm here, but I'm alone. Everyone else is dead! I'm coming to the command center but it's hell out here! I just got through a storage area full of Berserkers doing what they do best...man, it was a _close_ call. I'm near. Tell me some good news." _Stanton spoke up, his own radio on.

"I do have some, Staff Sergeant. I've managed to get into contact with a military ship the next system over, on patrol. They're headed this way...and I've downloaded all the data I could into all of our personal databases, so one of us has to make it out of here."

_"__That's goddamn good news."_

"Well, I've got some goddamned bad news to go with it. The Black Ops fleet, which, I must say is one _hell_ of a fleet, is preparing to evacuate this sector. I guess that's how they managed to institute the orbital blockade. But they've set a bomb on the station. They're blowing it to hell. And the countdown timer is counting down. We've got forty minutes." Silence, then,

_"__Alright, everyone make for the hangar we spotted on the map. Get there, quick as you can, whoever gets there first secures a ship."_

"Roger that," Jared replied.

The trip to the hangar was dark and haunting. They left the command center and stepped out into a corridor bathed in bloody solitude and grim silence. As they began to navigate the bleak complex of passageways, an alarm began to sound, low and grating. Jared led the way, a shotgun tight to his shoulder, pumped and ready. His battle rifle had run dry in the last battle and he'd abandoned it. The other two backed him up.

They hurried down the corridors, shooting any zombies or surviving personnel they came across. As they went, Stanton spoke up.

"You know...this is a pretty total massacre...doesn't it seem strange how quickly the undead managed to navigate the station and just kill the shit out of everyone?" Jared considered the situation, staring at the bodies and the sprays of blood as he passed them.

"What are you suggesting?" he replied finally.

"That...I don't know, maybe the zombies are smarter than we're giving them credit for."

Jared wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he didn't, merely refocusing himself on getting out alive. At this point, it was all that mattered. When he was away, _if_ he got away, he had all that data to sift through and a lot of time to spend with Megan.

He began calling for updates from Scott, but the man didn't answer. At all. Jared began to get nervous. He knew they were nearing the hangar. As they came closer, they began running into fewer and fewer living or undead things. The dread and tension continued to mount. Around them, the station bled and died. How long did they have left? Jared realized that, without conscious thought, he'd started a timer on his HUD when Stanton had warned them.

Only fifteen minutes remained.

He hurried on, breaking into a light jog. They reached the hangar in another few moments. Jared hit the button to activate the door, and leaped back as a corpse, which had been leaned against it, spilled out onto the corridor floor. With a start, Jared realized that it was Scott.

"Christ!" he cried, snapping his gaze up to see what had killed the man. What now? What was in the hangar? An army of Berserkers? A legion of Speed Demons? A horde of the undead? Something new awaited his gaze.

At first, it didn't seem all that frightening, compared to what they had seen so far. It was big, sure, but not as big as a Berserker. But then, as Jared raised his weapon, covering it and advancing into the room, he realized something was strangely off about this thing. It was very tall, topping off at at least eight feet. It wore no clothes, instead its flesh seemed to have blackened and hardened, almost like natural, living armor. Its fingers ended in razor-sharp claws. And its eyes...they didn't seem to so much glow crimson as be actively aflame.

Jared squeezed the trigger. The shotgun blast seemed to fill the room. The creature, this new thing, moved with a frightening quickness. It dodged the shotgun blast and was upon them in what felt like mere nanoseconds. It knocked the shotgun clear of Jared's hands and sent him flying with a solid blow to his chest that dented his armor. As he skidded across the ground, rolling, trying to come to a stop and bring his pistol into play, he heard sounds: screaming, grunting, a gunshot, then two, followed by a long, low howl.

He managed to get to his feet as he heard another scream, abruptly cut off. Furious, pistol raising, he stumbled to his feet and tried to make sense of the situation before him. Stanton was on the ground, an unmoving, slumped form that Jared somehow knew was dead. Megan stood there, at arm's length from the thing, the...Jared's mind fumbled for words. The Alpha Zombie. She was standing there, stunned.

Jared realized, in a flash, why. She was bleeding. The red liquid coursed down her face from where the Alpha Zombie had slashed her, had cut her deep. So deep, in fact, that her teeth showed through her cheek. Her eyes were wide and unseeing with fear and pain. She was infected, Jared realized. What was he going to do? He was going to have to-the Alpha Zombie saved him the trouble of having to do anything as it reached out and plunged its claws into her neck, half severing her head and killing her in an instant.

Jared felt a roar of animal fury, seething with pain and rage, escape his throat. He raised his pistol and fired, reacting on pure instinct now, emptying the magazine in no time flat into the Alpha Zombie. The thing roared as the bullets slammed into its body, its chest and ultimately its face. Black blood flew on the air. The roaring abruptly cut off as one of the bullets entered into its skull through the eye socket, and it collapsed immediately into an unmoving heap.

Jared began walking forward, cold and numb. He reloaded, came to stand over the still creature and pointed the pistol at its face, then unloaded the second magazine point-blank. As the last shot echoed away, the hangar became still and silent around him. He stood there for a little while, staring at the abomination, not seeing it.

A soft chime caught his attention. Two minutes until his countdown was up. Slowly, Jared limped over to Megan's corpse. She was gone, staring lifelessly up at the ceiling, the blood drained out of her. He turned away from her, unable to handle the sight. Stanton. He moved over to the Corporal's body, just to check. He nudged the man onto his back and knew right away that his suspicions were correct: Stanton was dead.

With laden footsteps, Jared limped across the vast hangar to a row of escape pods embedded in the far wall. Most of them were still in their nests. He entered one, marched along the short shaft to the cockpit and sat down heavily in the pilot's seat. Numbly, he ran through the warm-up sequences, then punched it.

The escape pod blasted out of its holding bay, away from the station. Hardly before he had reached the minimum safety distance, Stygian Station blew. The ship shuddered as the shock-wave hit it and debris pelted its outer hull.

Jared brought the pod to a halt and turned it around, hovering in the vast emptiness of space. Xerxes lay ahead of him, a vast blue-gray marble that framed the exploding station. It seemed small by comparison.

And, in the distance, already thousands of kilometers away, a fleet of vessels were escaping. One by one, they began to drop into slipspace and disappear. Mutely, numbly, Jared reach out, his fingertips staining the glass of the cockpit window. He clutched his hand into a fist, as if he could pluck the ships from space and crush them. Slowly, but rising fast, he could feel the coals of fury beginning to burn.

"Wherever you go, however many you are, I'll find you," he whispered in a dead voice. "If you believe nothing else, believe that."


End file.
